Blood
by Writer by Moonlight
Summary: After being bitten by a vampire, Harley Jasper abandons her promising college major in musical arts and criss-crosses the American mid-west, playing music at local bars and secretly tracking down the vampires who ruined her life. When she runs into Sam and Dean Winchester while performing at a bar in Kansas, she finds out that there's more to her fate than meets the eye. Season 9.
1. Chapter 1

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I do not own the characters of or anything related to Supernatural.

I hope everyone enjoys my story! Feel free to review and tell me your thoughts and/or constructive criticisms to this story! :)

CHAPTER 1 - Welcome to Kansas, Where Nothing (Everything) Happens (I forgot to name this chapter once I posted it, so I'm putting the name right here instead)

A wooden sign highlighted with dim spotlights glowed in the distance. As she came closer, she could see her destination had finally arrived.

**LEBANON, KANAS**

_The Sunflower State_

Est. 1861

"Finally," she sighed as she drove past the sign. She had a performance at a local bar at ten pm and it was already nine-thirty. She wouldn't get her full pay if she showed up late.

She scrolled the dial on her old 1994 Chevy Silverado's radio until she heard the familiar lyrics of Smokin' by Boston. A wide smile pushed itself onto her weary face; this was her favorite song. Turning it up to nearly full blast, she sang along all the way down the highway without worrying about the tune or harmony of her voice.

Twenty minutes later, she pulled her pick up truck into the parking lot around the bar. The neon sign above the bar read: _The Lone Sunflower._

"Bursting with creativity, aren't they?" she mused aloud. She got out of the driver's side and walked over to the trunk. She pulled off the cover and pulled down the compartment door and started dragging out her instruments one by one – the electric guitar case, the saxophone case, the acoustic guitar case, violin case, and the props to hold up the instruments when she's not using them. She nearly forgot the little flute case she'd put in the front seat; she grabbed it, about a third the size of a briefcase and five times lighter. She took the acoustic guitar out of its case and swung it around her shoulders with the strap so that the guitar hung behind her in the iconic way. She stashed away the case and then grabbed the flute case and the saxophone case in one hand and the violin case and the electric guitar case in another; that was only the first trip.

With strength surprising to anyone but herself, she easily carried all four cases across the small parking lot and kicked the bar door open with her foot. The bar was lightly crowded; about fifty people scattered here and there, most of them sitting at the bar while a few took the small round tables for themselves or with friends.

She hauled her load to the stage near the far right of the bar, a small wooden platform about six inches off of the ground. She lightly placed her instruments on the platform and ran back to the truck to get the props and her laptop.

He watched the girl haul all four of the huge, black cases to the wooden performance platform in the back of the bar with strange ease. Then, without breaking a sweat, she jogged out of the bar and out of sight.

"Look at that," Dean remarked to his brother, "dinner and a show." The two wayward sons were sitting at their own round table, Sam with a Miller Lite in his hands and Dean was drinking a Yuengling. Dean gazed back at his brother and gave a half-grin.

His brother, Sam, dragged a hand across his tired face and let it hit the table with a light thud.

"Fantastic. More noise to make my migraine worse."

Dean's half-grin slipped off his face and his forehead creased in concern.

"Damn. I thought a good cold one would get rid of that."

Sam shrugged at his brother, regretting his remark.

"Dean, I'm fine. Just a little headache. I'll be fine."

Dean stared at his brother, unconvinced.

"No, you won't," he deadpanned. Sam was about to retort when Dean's head swiveled to the side as the bar door opened again. The girl walked back in, carrying some weird prop things and what looked like a laptop case. Dean noticed her slim body, the way her black leather jacket clung to her, and her tight, dark skinny jeans and her edgy, black combat boots. Her dark brunette hair ended in waves around her shoulders; it hid her face as she bent over her black cases.

Dean looked back at his brother and wiggled his eyebrows. Sam just smirked at him and took another gulp of his Miller Lite, hoping this swallow would magically take away his horribly throbbing migraine that'd been there since they'd watched the angels fall two days ago. Since then, the only thing on their minds was where the hell Cas could be. Otherwise, everything had been eerily quiet. Except Crowley in the basement back at the Bat Cave (as Dean liked to call it). Crowley would neither give information nor shut the hell up and his mere presence was driving Kevin crazy.

Sam noticed, amongst the girl's instrument cases, was a violin. He raised his eyebrows a little; _that _required serious skills. He'd had some friends back at Stanford who had played the violin and they all had been devoted to the instrument since birth. _This performance might actually be good_, he thought.

It only took her a few minutes to get her instruments ready and tuned. She picked up the acoustic guitar and adjusted the microphone set up in front of her. She always liked to start off with the acoustic guitar to ease people into the music. Then she'd go into the electric guitar and dish out some classic rock and modern alt-rock songs. If the crowd seemed like the type, she'd pull out her flute and do a little Jethro Tull action. If the bar was more modern, she'd take out her violin with some classic-electronic songs by Lindsey Stirling.

There seemed to be some people just over twenty-one and then some bar-goers over fifty, so she was considering all four instruments to keep their attention.

She pulled the stool over from next to the wall and set it in front of the mic. She sat down, propped up the guitar, and without an introduction began to strum.

Dean recognized the song immediately. Sam was in mid-sentence when Dean twisted around in his chair and looked at the girl strumming out an acoustic version of Paint It Black by the Rolling Stones. At first, no one noticed her; then she hit the chorus and everyone in the bar quieted down to a polite whisper.

_Her voice isn't quite like Mick Jagger's or anything_, Dean thought, _but she's close._

Her voice had an eerie tone to it, like she seriously wanted every red door she saw to be painted black.

The girl's talent pleasantly surprised Sam as well. But he wasn't into classic rock n' roll like Dean was, so it was a passing thought amongst the swarm of worries in his migraine-aggravated mind. Once he saw Dean was no longer listening to him but was absorbed in the music, his train of thought derailed and he took a pensive sip of Miller Lite.

The thing on Dean's mind was that he definitely needed to put the moves on that girl.

About an hour later, she had gone through the acoustic guitar and electric guitar and had gotten a great response from the crowd; they loved her version of Sunshine of Your Love by Cream.

She decided a saxophone might be too jazzy for these Kansas people, so she tried for a little classical music with a twist for the younger bar-goers and those with a sophisticated taste.

She stashed away her guitars snugly in their cases and pulled out her violin. A buzz went over the bar-goers, laced with mild confusion or disappointment. _Oh, just wait,_ she thought to herself with a quirk of a smile. _This'll be good._

She pulled out her laptop and pulled up the electronic-only version of Lindsey Stirling's song Crystallize. She pressed play.

She withdrew the bow from the case as a pirate may unsheathe his trusty sword and lay it upon the strings of the violin.

The music started, and she began pulling the bow gracefully across the violin. Her fingers pressed repeatedly on one string quickly for a beautiful vibrato sound, and the crowd hushed. Her bow graced upon the strings slowly, and then the dubstep kicked in.

Then the bow was like lightning upon the strings, as if possessed and was compelling her to move it so fast that it looked blurred to the audience.

She pursed her lips as she moved the bow with speed and precision, feeling the muscles in her biceps flexing insanely. Her fingers moved without her thinking; they did it on their own.

Then the music slowed, and her bow calmed down, but only for a moment. She sped up a little and caught the tough high note perfectly; it made her grin like an idiot. She began to take small steps on the stage as she played, stepping a little to the right and to the left, bending her knees a little so that she almost had a mystical quality about her.

And then – the dubstep. She took some small spins around the stage as her bow went madly across the strings, moving up and down and side to side so fast it was hard for her to even see it. The electronica went WHUM WHUM WAAA behind her as she played, and then she took a small, slow spin as the music calmed. She held the last note in vibrato as the song came to a close.

It wasn't until she lifted her bow off of the violin that the crowd broke into raucous applause. Some guy in a MacGyver jacket sitting at a table with a long-haired man whistled long and loud and clapped raucously, making her blush. The long-haired man with him clapped politely with an impressed smile and raised eyebrows.

_Wow, this is the best crowd I've had all month_, she thought with utter glee. She knew her face certainly showed it; her cheeks almost hurt from smiling.

It was midnight and the girl was packing up her instruments when Dean decided to make his move. He waved to Sam who nodded and made his way out towards the Impala. Dean then made a beeline from his table through the throng of bar-goers to the girl standing on the wooden stage, setting her violin into its case.

"Hey, gorgeous," Dean said, putting on his most charming smile. The girl glanced up at him from where she was kneeling and smiled.

She glaced up at him in mild surprise.

"Oh, um, hey." She then looked back down at her violin and began strapping the bow in. From where she was kneeling, he could see down her black and grey striped shirt.

"That music was really awesome. I gotta say, your version of the Rolling Stones would've made Mick Jagger _jealous_."

She looked up at him again and beamed. Her deep blue eyes momentarily reminded him of his mom's eyes – _why am I thinking about that?_

"Thanks," she said, her voice a bit deep for a woman; but in a good way, it sounded nice. Not too feminine and high-pitched; Dean found it sexy. "I take it you're a Stones fan," she said.

Dean smiled and puffed out his chest a bit.

"The biggest one. Sympathy for the Devil?"

The girl stood up, holding her violin case.

"It doesn't get better than that." She stepped off of the stage and extended a hand with a friendly smile; her politeness took him off guard for a second. "Harley. Harley Jasper."

Dean noticed a long scar on the side of her face; it almost aged her a little. He momentarily considered asking her about it, but then decided not to; battle wounds were meant to be admired, but never mentioned. He grasped her hand and shook it firmly and looked her straight in the eyes. He noticed immediately the sage in them; this girl had seen a lot of crap. A few red flags in his mind went up, but he tried to ignore them. She seemed normal enough, right?

"Dean."

Something flashed across Harley's eyes, but before Dean could see what it was, it was gone. The red flags went up again, and this time he didn't ignore them. Harley Jasper quickly smiled at him cordially.

"That's a nice name. Dean. Don't hear that very often."

Dean shrugged coolly.

"Yeah, I guess so. Hey, I was wondering," he began, and smiled as charmingly as he could manage and looked right into her deep blue eyes, "if you're not gonna be busy tonight, maybe you'd like to get a drink with me and then we could go back to my place."

Harley seemed to almost force a smile, to Dean's simultaneous dismay and interest.

"Um, that sounds nice but I'll have to decline. I have another long night tomorrow so I need to, um, rest up. But we'll have to get a drink sometime, definitely."

His face spread into a great, big smile, his eyes sparkling at her. But inwardly, he knew something was fishy.

"I look forward to that," he said. "Why don't you give me your number…"

But Harley shook her head, almost too quickly.

"No, no need! I'll be here tomorrow night, just swing over and we'll have some drinks, maybe with your brother too."

Dean nodded, though the feeling of suspense had just gone _ding ding ding _in his mind.

"Alright, you'll see me here tomorrow then, at that same table right over there," he promised, jabbing a thumb in the direction of the table. "And I'll get to watch your beautiful face sing again."

Harley blushed and smiled, but Dean noticed she didn't look him right in the eyes but almost off to the side.

"Okay, sounds good."

As soon as Dean left the bar, Harley let herself finally panic.

"Oh God, oh God, oh God," she murmured feverishly as she piled up her instruments on herself like a pack mule. "If that's really him, I am so screwed."

She made the first trip out to her pick up and piled the instruments into it.

"Maybe I can just leave town," she thought out loud. "He won't know where I went. He and his brother can't just track me down, right? They don't know what I am, I'll be fine."

_But what if they already know?_

"Shit," she muttered to herself. "_Shit. _They probably already know! Maybe that's why he hit on me – to make me drop my guard." She sighed and leaned against her trusty old truck. "Even if they think I'm normal, if I just leave they might get suspicious and track me down." She bit her lip, thinking. She suddenly pushed herself off of the truck and stormed back into the bar and gathered up the rest of her things. The manager of the bar gave her the payment for that night and locked up the bar behind her: she'd done so well, she'd been paid $100, half of that from tips from the audience.

But she was too distressed to really pay attention to that, so she stuffed the check in her jeans pocket, loaded up her instruments, and got into her truck.

"I should just turn him down tomorrow night," she said aloud. "Tell him I'm not interested. That should get him and his brother off my trail."

She sighed and ran a hand through her long, wavy hair.

"Maybe I'm overreacting," she mused, trying to feel hopeful. "I mean, lots of guys have been named Dean and wear MacGyver jackets, right? And that might've been his good friend with him and not his brother..." She shook her head. No, it couldn't have been just one big coincidence. The Winchester brothers were here to kill her before she got her plan into motion.

She sighed again, dread upon her like a freezing shower. In her dread, she realized she was famished. Reaching across the to the floor of the passenger seat, she opened up a cooler and pulled out a bag filled with red liquid. She held it where the moonlight glanced off of the bag. It read "O+" in big, black letters.

She shrugged; that would do. AB+ was her favorite, though. She bit into the bag and slurped until it was gone. She sighed, feeling refreshed. Remembering her daily dose requirement, she took a flask out of the inside of her leather jacket pocket. With a grimace, she tipped the liquid down her throat and managed not to gag; even after a year, it still tasted like crap.

Little did she know that a certain two hunters were watching her intently from their Chevrolet Impala '67 from across the parking lot, watching their suspicions come true. Slowly but surely, they made their plans against her.


	2. The Deal

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hello, everyone! I wanted to say thank you so much to those who have read/reviewed/favorited/followed this story! It means sooo much to me! Once this story is being read consistently, I'll post a new chapter every Tuesday. But I wanna get this story more noticed so the chapters will be posted irregularly for the time being.

UPDATE: JULY 3, 2014: 11:59PM: I made some quick edits, you may notice then but they're very minor.

Feel free to review and give me your thoughts and/or constructive criticisms, or check out my other story: a Sherlock fanfic called "American Insider"!

Bumping along the unpaved and cracked roads of Lebanon, Kansas, Harley drove her old, green pick up truck to the nearest motel she could find: a cute little place called Kansas Nights with neon lights forming " z z z" beside the neon lit name.

She pulled her truck into a decent parking space, and walked into the motel front office and got a room, D23. She walked down the pavement sidewalk beside all of the rooms and mused to herself.

Maybe she'd overreacted before, maybe Sam and Dean Winchester weren't after her. Maybe Dean was just honestly hitting on her. That made her smirk; he was definitely hot, but not her type.

What was her type? She didn't know sometimes; she'd never been much of a romantic, or even that social. Not that she was really shy or anything, she just wasn't that into talking to people; introverted was the term she preferred. All she was sure of about herself was that she was definitely asexual, which was fine with her. She'd always been like that, so it never felt weird or different. Her parents hadn't been too happy about that, but they came to accept it.

She briefly wondered how her mother was doing. Hopefully she was safe and sound back home and continuing to live normally despite the fact that she had eluded her search party a few months ago.

She glanced up and realized she'd come to D23 already. She stuck the key in the hole and turned, and let herself in.

The girl walked down the rows of rooms with her head down, her hands in her tight jeans pockets; she seemed to be deep in thought. Sam and Dean watched from their Impala, waiting for her to go into her room so they could move.

Dean watched her intently. Her reaction to his surname was a dead-giveaway. She either a demon or a monster or something else. _Angel, maybe?Nah, she would've vaporized me or something then, _Dean thought. _Or at least she would've acted like an arrogant, self-righteous bitch. That would've been even more of giveaway._

They watched her stop at her door and let herself in.

"Alright, how are we gonna do this?" Sam asked from the passenger side seat.

Dean shrugged.

"Just bust in there."

Sam looked at him in annoyance.

"Dean, if we just barge in there, she could attack us – if she's a monster, or whatever she is. We need a better plan."

"Like what, Sam?" Dean snapped. "Wait here all night until she leaves and then check out her place? She told me herself that she'd be at that bar again tomorrow night. For all we know, she could be snoozing all day tomorrow!"

Then it dawned on Sam.

"Exactly," he said.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Dean asked, clearly frustrated.

A knowing smile spread on Sam's face.

"She'll be asleep, Dean! We'll slice her head off right then and there – no fight, no fuss. It'll be simple."

Dean's face mirrored Sam's.

"Like stealin' candy from a baby. I like it."

The room was quaint and homey and smelled slightly of mold, like a grandparent's house. But this was the best Harley could do, especially with the minimal amount of money she made by performing in bars. All of her instruments needed tune-ups but she just couldn't afford it, so she watched YouTube tutorials and tried to do them on her own.

She had gone back out to her truck to get her suitcase and now it lay on her bed, zipped open and filled with some clothes and a lot of dangerous weapons, ranging from jagged daggers to throwing knives to pistols like revolvers and semi-automatics, all once belonging to her grandfather. She dug around the bottom of her suitcase and brought out a folder.

She opened it up and pulled out a large piece of paper that had been folded way too many times. She unfolded the paper to reveal a map covered in Sharpie lines of all sorts of different colors, all of them meeting up from various locations to one very specific location: Lebanon, Kansas.

Harley took out some pins from a small box in the folder and pinned up the map on the wall and studied it. All of her sources had led her here. A year long of hunting the damn things down and she had come here.

She hoped to God that she was right, or else the damn things have moved their nest somewhere else and she'd have to start all over.

Shaking off the worries, she plucked out her weapons and laid them on the counter to be cleaned tomorrow morning. Many were bloodstained or rusting from age, but luckily she'd recently bought some oil to clean all of that schmutz off.

Feeling the weight of exhaustion on her eyelids, Harley decided that it time to hit the hay. She took her semi-automatic and put it under her pillow, just in case.

Not bothering to change her clothes, she pulled the covers off of one of the beds and climbed into it, feeling the warm embrace of the clean sheets and the softness of the good quality mattress. It sure beat sleeping in her old truck.

Sam's digital watch let out a _beep – beep – beep!_ He snorted awake and glanced at it sleepily. It was three AM; time to kill a vampire. He punched Dean in the shoulder, startling him awake.

"What the hell-?" Dean muttered lethargically, rubbing his eyes.

"It's three AM," Sam informed him, running a hand through his hair to fix it.

Dean groaned loudly.

"Damn, I never get any sleep anymore."

Sam prodded his shoulder again and opened his car door.

"C'mon, let's get this over with."

The two brothers staggered out of the chair, slightly hungover, and opened the Impala's trunk. A large array of weapons lay open for them to choose from, like a demented child's candy stash. Without a word, the brothers selected their weapon of choice – both went for long knives for quick beheading – and headed over to room D23.

Sam pulled out his picklocks from his pocket and worked on the door lock while Dean stood watch. When the door creaked open, the Winchesters entered the beast's lair. The room was dark and moonlight cascaded upon the carpeted floor as the door opened. It was a stereotypical motel room; mold-smelling but resembling one's grandparents' house.

Even in the dark, Dean's eyes immediately found the mound in the furthest bed and heard peaceful breathing. He clutched his knife in his right hand and his brain went into hunter mode. He approached the sleeping dragon carefully, tiptoeing, Sam a few steps behind him for backup.

As he approached the side of the bed, he saw the creature's face. He remembered how he and Sam had watched it drink blood from a bag of donated blood, just like Benny used to do. Then it downed some liquor or whatever was in the flask, but that was irrelevant. He knew a leech when he saw one.

The vampire's hair was strewn across the pillow and her face was calm and relaxed against the pillow; it made Dean sick. He raised his knife and felt an odd sort of glee as his muscles tightened to bring down the blade –

"_Dean!" _Sam whispered suddenly, stopping Dean in mid-slice. "_Wait!"_

Anger bubbled within him; the hunter hates to be interrupted in his work. Dean whipped around, bristling.

"_What_, Sam? If you haven't forgotten, we're trying to gank a _vampire_ here!" he whispered vehemently.

Sam gestured to him to come over to the counter where an old fashioned, bulky TV sat. Vowing vengeance against Sam in the form of a clever prank to be exposed online, Dean tiptoed over to him and hissed, "_What?"_

Sam gestured to the counter; Dean looked and his blood chilled. Sitting there was an array of weapons, ranging from Smith & Wesson revolvers to ancient-looking katana swords with embellished handles.

"What the hell?" Dean whispered, awed and jealous.

"Look," Sam whispered, gesturing to the wall above them. Dean gazed up and saw a large map with Sharpie lines of various colors – or at least what he could tell in the dark – from various different locations, ranging from Boston, Massachusetts and Trenton, New Jersey and Chicago, Illinois and Cincinnati, Ohio and Indianapolis, Indiana, all to one specific location.

"Lebanon, Kansas," Sam whispered. "Dean, do you realize what this is?"

Dean felt shivers travel up and down his spine.

"That this ain't no ordinary vampire? Hell yeah, man, I got _that_."

"But, Dean, she's _hunting something._" Sam whispered, his voice tense and apprehensive.

Dean looked at him, suddenly troubled. Gordon was one thing, but this vampire knew exactly what she was doing and hadn't been on their radar for God knows how long.

"Sammy," Dean whispered, "I think we've got a problem."

"Hell yeah, you do," a female voice said behind them. The Winchesters whipped around and saw the girl from the bar, hair and clothes disheveled, with a semi-automatic pointed at them.

Sam and Dean glanced at each other and put their hands up.

"Hey there, Harley, how's it goin'?" Dean quipped, forcing a charming smile.

"Shut up," she snapped, and the smile fell off of his face. "What are you two doing here? Why are you tracking me?"

Sam noticed there was a bit of a waver in her tone; it occurred to him that she was afraid of them. He decided to put this to his advantage.

"We're here to kill you, obviously," he said. "We've been tracking you this whole time. Why do you think we were at that bar tonight?"

Harley's poker face faltered, then reset. She pointed the gun directly at Sam.

"Then why not kill me the minute you got here? You freakin' Winchesters woke me up with your damn whispering, louder than hell."

"Maybe because we saw you were tracking something, and you've got way too many weapons for a vampire that can survive on her natural strength and senses," Sam retorted, quick as lightning. Dean felt momentarily envious of Sam's wit, and then dismissed the thought that he was obviously more awesome than Sammy.

"Well, it certainly saved my life with you two admiring my weapons," the vampire retorted in a smart-aleck tone. "Maybe that's why I have them."

"I think we both know that you don't invite your bloodsucker buddies over to admire guns and swords," Dean cut in, wanting to participate in the interrogation. Harley switched her aim to him. "Tell the truth or we'll cut your freakin' head off."

"Fat chance," Harley spat. "I'm the one with the gun here."

"And we're the _freakin' Winchesters_," Sam spat right back. Harley didn't reply but redirected her gun at Sam. "But, before we kill you, do enlighten us: what are you hunting?"

"This strange beast called none of your damn business," the vampire snapped. She shifted her feet a little, and Sam knew she was ready to pull the trigger. He needed to stall her more.

"How about this," Sam began, setting his tone cool and even. "Let's have a compromise. How about you tell us what you're hunting and we kill the damn thing, and we don't decapitate you."

Dean turned to his brother in contempt.

"_Sam!" _he hissed, but Sam ignored him. He knew exactly what he was doing.

The vampire considered, biting her lip a little. Dean couldn't help but admit that she looked hot doing that; then mentally slapped himself for thinking a damn bloodsucker was hot.

"I'm tracking a horde of vampires," Harley confessed, dropping her gun. "They've got the biggest nest in the mid-west but they keep real quiet about it. It took me a year to find out it was here in Lebanon. I can't confront the damn things on my own, unfortunately; I haven't the manpower despite my abilities. You two help me out, perhaps with some other hunter buddies – _who won't behead me once we're done _– and then we'll never cross paths again. If I ever see your damn Impala, I'll go the other way. Deal?"

"How do we know you won't go sucking other innocent people dry?" Dean snapped, gripping his knife visibly.

Something flickered across Harley's face.

"Because I've only done it once," she said in a dark voice. "I've been on donated blood ever since. You could call me a sober vampire, if that makes sense."

Sam nodded but Dean was still itching to decapitate her. He couldn't believe she'd slipped out of his fingers like that!

"It's a deal," Sam said with finality. "Try anything, and we won't hesitate to chop your head off. Got it?"

"Deal," Harley said, stuffing her gun in the back of her jeans and then sticking her thumbs in her pockets. She shifted her weight to one leg and glared at them sassily.

"Four PM tomorrow, don't be late. My brother here has a temper," Sam warned. Dean gave her a mockingly charming smile. Harley's face didn't falter but her jaw clenched.

Sam and Dean let themselves out and closed the door. Dean grabbed Sam by the arm and dragged him away from the door and towards their car. Once there, he let him go.

"_What the hell was that about?" _he yelled at him. "I was _this _close to ganking her!"

"Hey, because of me, we're going to be ganking more than one vampire this week!" Sam hissed back, keeping his voice low.

Dean opened his mouth to shout, but then reconsidered Sam's words. Then it dawned on him.

"What, do you mean-?"

"Did you really think I was just going to let her get off the hook? Of course we're going to kill her, once we've taken out that nest," Sam said in a hushed voice, sounding suddenly dangerous and cruel. It scared Dean a little, but then again, this wasn't the first time. He was also glad that Sammy had been clever enough to see that when all Dean had wanted to do was satisfy his bloodlust.

"Right when we're done," Harley whispered to herself, sitting on her bed, holding her katana in her hands possessively, "I'll…I'll...," she trailed off. _What? She'd kill them?_

She groaned and put her katana in her lap so she could bury her face in her hands. She dragged her hands across her face and let them flop in her lap helplessly.

_She couldn't kill them, as much as she wanted to. That just… that just wasn't right. She was going to kill anyone, it was going to be those damn vampires that turned deprived her of her mortality. She wasn't going to waste her energy on anyone else. _

She knew they weren't actually going to let her live. _But, if they try anything when those bloodsuckers are dead, _then _I'll just suck 'em dry._

That thought stopped her cold. _I _am _a monster. _


	3. A New Pawn in the Game

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thank you so much to all those who have read and reviewed this story, ya'll are amazing! :D Feel free to review your thoughts and/or constructive criticisms. :)

The Impala pulled into Kansas Nights motel, its engine purring as it slowed to a stop in front of room D23. Sam and Dean had been quiet the entire ride over while Dean blared Metallica music to fill the deafening silence. The digital clock in the Impala read 4:15 PM.

As he turned off the music, Dean felt the need speak up.

"Hey, Sammy," he began. "Are you sure we should be doing this? Y'know, working with this vampire chick? I mean, she's hot and all but I don't trust her."

"Dean…"

"We should be looking for Cas!" Dean exclaimed, frustrated. "Wherever the hell he went! He won't answer my prayers and it's been two days! And Crowley's locked up in home base, but we can't just leave him there by himself – he might burn the freakin' place down!"

"_Dean!" _Sam shouted, shutting Dean up. "Calm down, we'll be fine. We'll find Cas, but in the meantime we need to save these people, especially with this large vamp nest just sitting around. They obviously tried to hide themselves for a reason, and that probably makes them dangerous. Dean, we'll kill these vamps, kill Harley, and then go back to base and make sure Crowley isn't summoning hell or anything. Trust me."

Dean sighed and looked at the steering wheel. He didn't believe a word of what Sam was saying; it was never that easy.

"Alright, Sammy, whatever you say."

A knock came at Sam's window. Harley outside the car, her dark brunette hair caressing her face and accenting her light blue eyes. She had on a black, tight AC/DC V-neck shirt with dark jeans and a pair of combat boots that were mud-splattered. In one hand she held a beat-up, black duffel bag. Sam jabbed a thumb backwards; Harley nodded and pulled open the back seat door and climbed in.

"Nice car," she remarked.

"Thanks," Dean muttered, not at all very thankful. He started up the Impala and the engine roared to life. He pulled out of Kansas Nights parking lot and onto the highway.

Trees and houses flew by them as Dean drove on. Dean glanced in the rearview mirror; Harley was staring out the window, seeming deep in thought.

"So, where are we going?"

"Southside of Lebanon at the old Costco store," Harley replied without looking at him.

Dean made a face at her through the mirror.

"They set up camp in a freaking Costco?"

Harley shrugged.

"Wouldn't that be the last place you'd look?" she asked rhetorically. "That place has everything there, so they'll have quite the inventory in weaponry. Not to mention a hundred different places to hide."

Dean shrugged and nodded in reluctant agreement.

"Clever bastards," he commented.

"They are clever," Harley agreed. "Which means we'll need a clever way to get in."

"Well, you can't get in without a membership, right?" Dean joked, glancing around for a moment. Harley and Sam just stared at him; his smile turned awkward and he just averted his eyes back to the road.

"My research says there should be about twenty-five vamps there," Harley said, "but there could be more."

Sam turned around in his seat to look at her.

"What makes you think we can take on that many, just the three of us?"

Harley grinned.

"We've got the element of surprise," she explained. "No one would be stupid enough to attack such a large nest, so their guard is gonna be down. The only thing we need is a good offensive tactic."

"I've got an idea," Dean said blatantly, his eyes on the road. "We charge in, guns blazing and blades swiping and we gank 'em all."

Harley stared at his eyes in the rearview mirror incredulously.

"You've… you've got to be kidding me, right?" she asked dubiously.

He shrugged again indifferently.

"Whatever gets the job done."

Harley scoffed at him, to Dean's irritation. He had the strongest desire to stop the Impala and toss this wise-ass vampire onto the street and then drive over her a few times.

"Do you realize this is _the largest vampire nest in the nation? _And you want to go in like some freakin' Arnold Schwarzenegger wanna-be? No, I've got an _actual _plan."

"If it's better than Dean's, I'm all ears," Sam remarked, earning him a scowling glance from his brother.

With a smug grin, Harley relayed all of the details of the plan she stayed up all day planning.

At around 5:00PM, the Impala pulled up to the old, abandoned Costco. The parking lot was hauntingly deserted with a few, rusting grocery carts here and there. The Costco letters were faded and covered in dirt, as was the outside wall and the windows. The sun still shined bright in the sky, though lower than it was earlier; they had until 9:00PM when all the vamps would come out to feast.

Harley sat in the backseat, feeling very nervous and excited. A full year's work had led her here, fortunately (or unfortunately, if they tried to kill her later) with two of the best hunters in the nation, and now she was finally getting her revenge.

If the plan went accordingly, then all would be well. But it was a risky plan and the chances of success were slim. _But, hey, no one said this job would be easy, _Harley thought optimistically. _Besides, I've got better backup than I'd ever planned for. How bad could it possibly be?_

_The same vampires that bit your neck in the prime of your life, _began a pesky rat in her mind said, nibbling away at her confidence_, could decapitate youand end it just like that._

Harley set her jaw. _They'll just have to catch me first._

_Or Sam and Dean will give you a nice, quick death, _the rat offered sadistically.

Harley swallowed. The rat was right; if they succeeded, she could die. If they failed, she _would _die.

_Either way, _she thought, feeling drained of optimism, _this will be my last sunset._

"Alright," Dean said from the driver's seat, pulling Harley out of her thoughts. "Let's do this."

The three hunters got out of the Impala and walked towards the entrance. At the doors, Harley stopped them.

"You two stay out here until I give the signal," she said. With a steady breath, she started forward and pushed open the door. A gust of mold and God-knows-what-else hit her nose and she cringed. Stepping inside, she took a deeper breath, embracing her vampiric instincts.

_Yep, that's definitely blood and rotting flesh, _she deduced, recognizing the familiar metallic and putrid odors. _They've got some snacks lying around._

She walked carefully, her combat boots making soft thuds on the concrete. The store was humongous with hundreds of hanging lamps some fifty feet above her, none of them lit. Rows and stacks of shelves lined the store and filled in the middle with boxes of various consumer products; Harley saw a few for desk lamps and pancake makers, etc.

The putrid and metallic smell grew stronger as she kept walking; she swiveled her head right and left and sniffed. There were definitely more than twenty-five vamps here, but she wasn't able to make an exact estimation.

She paused and made a slow waving motion with her hand in the air. She heard the front doors creak open and the sounds of boots on concrete. She kept walking; she could smell Sam and Dean not far behind her.

The store must've looked pretty dark to the Winchesters, but Harley had no problem seeing in the dark. Like night vision, she could make out various body parts in puddles of blood in dark corners, rotting away or freshly tossed there.

_The vamps are probably all in the back of the store, _she thought. _None would be stupid enough to sleep near the front._

She kept moving forward, continuing to look out for any of her brethren. Dean's smell came stronger; he was right behind her, she could hear his heart beating calmly like that of an experienced hunter. Blood rushed through his veins, pumping pure adrenaline. But, thanks to her concoction that she kept in her flask, none of that bothered her, at least until the next day, when she'd have to take another dose.

She glanced behind her and met Dean's eyes; she made a motion with her hand to the back doors in the store labeled "EMPLOYEES ONLY". Dean nodded, his hand tightening on his blade.

She tiptoed up to the doors and peered inside through the small, square window. She nearly lost her breath; all of the vampires were asleep upon the floor or on hammocks in that room. With utter dismay, she realized there had to be at least a hundred of them. Her prediction had been way off. The room would be very dark for Sam and Dean; she would be the only one who could decipher one vampire from another.

_We're so screwed, _she thought fatalistically. She stepped back from the doors and looked at the brothers whose gazes showed anticipation.

"There's gotta be a hundred vamps in there," she whispered.

Dean's eyes widened almost comically. Behind him, Sam ran a nervous hand through his hair in frustration.

"_A hundred?" _Dean whispered incredulously. "How the hell can we take on _one hundred_ vamps?"

Harley sighed.

"We can't," she whispered. "I'm going in alone and kill their leader. You two are gonna turn back around and get the hell outta here."

The two Winchesters gawked at her.

"You're serious?" Sam whispered. "You're just gonna take on all those vamps by yourself? Are you suicidal?"

Harley shrugged.

"It'd be a good way to go," she whispered. "Finally get my revenge on them for ruining my life."

Sam and Dean exchanged looks. Harley was surprised; she expected them to say, "well, thank you very much" and run right out of this hellhole. But they seemed like they were having second thoughts about leaving. Sam put an arm around Dean and led him away for a moment. She smirked as they began to whisper; apparently they'd forgotten about her enhanced hearing.

Long story short, Dean was all for leaving her to die but Sam felt that they needed to exterminate this nest as thoroughly as possible, even if it meant continuing to work with Harley. Then she heard they were still planning to kill her later; that sent chills up her spine.

_I knew it, _she thought, jaw clenching, _you can't trust a hunter, let alone two. _

They walked back to her, faces solemn.

"We can't just leave you here," Sam said reluctantly, though there was a hint of genuinity in his tone... just a hint. Dean was gritting his teeth, hating every word. "We started this and we're gonna end it."

"Alright, your funeral," she whispered. _And mine as well, either way it turns out._

She turned and pushed open the door ever so carefully. It creaked a little, but made no other sound. Harley took a tentative step inside. She could smell more rotting flesh from previous meals and the smell of blood on the walls and the floor. Light breathing and some heavy snoring filled the room; it was like walking into a den of sleeping dragons.

She took a few more steps, her head swiveling from side to side. Sam and Dean followed her in, taking ginger steps and squinting their eyes in the darkness.

Her eyes caught on a slumped figure in the corner; she smelled human. She motioned to the two brothers and pointed at the woman.

Sam tiptoed up to the person and saw it was a woman covered in blood. The woman looked up at him with tearful, hopeless eyes. Parts of her face had chunks of flesh ripped out while her neck, arms, and torso were littered with crescent-shaped bite marks outlined in dark and brownish-red.

Sam put a calm hand on the woman's shoulder; it felt warm and sticky. The woman began to speak in a croaking whisper but Sam shushed her.

"It's okay, we're here for you," he whispered. "We're gonna get you out of here."

The woman's eyes bulged. And she screamed.

Every single vampire in the room awoke and jumped to their feet.

"INTRUDERS!" the woman howled, her voice shrill and insane. "INTRUDERS!"

"Damn it!" Dean yelled. "Run!"

The three hunters took off for the door, but three vamps jumped in front of them, blocking their only exit. Sam turned and saw all of the vamps closing in on them, baring their fangs.

Dean could hear their heavy, hungry breathing and loud hissing. He saw Harley bare her fangs and hiss at them, taking a mock-step forward like a threatening predator. A few vamps jumped back in shock but then hissed back.

"Hold up!" a voice called out. The vamps stopped in their steps. "What is all of the _commotion?" _The vampires parted in the middle and a male vampire walked towards them. He had long, tangled brown hair and muddy brown eyes; his mouth was bloodstained and so were his teeth. He wore a simple white T-shirt and long jeans, both stained with brownish-red spots.

It dawned on Sam that this was the leader from the way the vampires parted like the Red Sea for him. Chills went down his spine when he saw the vampire leader lock eyes with Harley.

"She's a traitor!" a female shouted. "Cut her head off, Shiloh!"

Shiloh, the leader, approached Harley and the Winchesters and smiled sadistically.

"Ah, Harley," he said, his voice smooth and young. "Looks like you've brought us dinner. How kind."

"We're here to gank your ass, you _son-of-a_—!" Dean hollered, but Harley turned and hissed at him, causing him to stumble back a little. She turned back to Shiloh and scowled.

"So, you're working with them, then," Shiloh said. "How unfortunate, because I thought you were finally going to join us." He smiled, showing his fangs, and laid a hand on Harley's shoulder. He caressed her neck; Harley tensed up but didn't move. With her every fiber she wanted to rip his neck out, but she had to wait. There was no way they could take on all of these vampires at once. They'd missed their chance and now they might all die.

"You always had such a pretty face," Shiloh cooed, staring in her eyes. It made her feel incredibly uncomfortable. "That's why I picked you. This pretty face didn't deserve to wither away. I wanted to preserve it."

"That's a load of bullshit," Harley spat.

"Whoa, language, sweetheart," Shiloh admonished. "That's no way for a lady to talk."

"I'll talk how I damn well please," she retorted angrily. Shiloh moved his hand to her face and kept caressing and moved in closer.

"Well, I'll have to teach you some manners… but after I rip your friends' throats out."

The vamps started closing in on them. Harley had one shot at this. She took a handful of Shiloh's long hair and bit into his neck. His distasteful blood poured into her mouth and down the sides of her face and onto her neck and splattered onto her face. Shiloh squirmed and sputtered and flailed his arms, but Harley had him in a death lock.

With intense joy, she twisted her head, violently snapping his neck right off of his torso. The force of it sent his head airborne. It hit the wall and slid to the floor, leaving a bloody trail on the wall.

Harley turned fiercely back to the surrounding vamps and bared her bloody fangs and snarled like a monster.

The vampires charged.

Sam and Dean ducked and punched and sliced, taking out several vamps at once. Harley swung her blade and chopped off the head of a female vamp and used her head to knock out another oncoming vamp. As she turned around, one knocked her to the ground and pinned her arms and legs. The vamp, a female, snarled at her for a moment before her head was sliced off. Harley looked up and saw Sam with his blade; they exchanged a nod before taking on more vamps.

The human woman who had been on the floor stood up and threw herself at Sam. The woman screamed and clawed at him, and he had no choice but to cut off her head, too. Her head tumbled to the ground, her wispy hair tangling with the blood and gore from the neck stump.

Sam didn't have time to mourn; he looked up back and saw another vamp charging at him. With ease he swiped his blade and decapitated the beast; its body flopped forward onto the floor, its head bouncing to a stop beside it.

Hands grabbed his arms and pinned them to his back. Someone kicked him behind the shins, forcing him to the floor. A hand grabbed his long hair and yanked his head back, bringing his eyes to the ceiling. The face of a male vampire, his eyes bloodshot and insane, met Sam's. He picked up Sam's blade and drew it across his own arm, drawing blood.

"_No!" _Sam cried out indignantly. "_DEAN!"_

The vamp, smiling viciously, held his bleeding arm over Sam's mouth. The blood began to drip and Sam tasted metallic.

Dean sliced endlessly, twisting and turning from vamp to vamp, never stopping. Blood splashed up on his shirt and in his eyes, but he kept jabbing and stabbing. In his peripheral vision, he saw Harley battling with several other vamps. She grabbed their necks and snapped them with her bare hands or would bite into them and twist her jaw to the side, creating the grotesque sound of bones breaking.

In this momentary distraction, a vamp pounced on him and pinned down his arms and legs. Another hovered over him – a female, her hair disheveled and her eyes bloodshot wide with lunacy. She smiled, showing her fangs, as she picked up Dean's blade and cut across her arm.

Dean struggled, his adrenaline replaced by utter horror. He heard Sammy yell out his name, but he couldn't move.

_Sammy! Hold on! _He thought helplessly, but the vamp was already kneeling over him with her bleeding arm. Dean pursed his lips tightly together as his last force of resistance. The vamp smeared her bloody arm over his lips, but Dean didn't taste the blood.

"Damn hunter!" the vamp shrieked. She dug her fingernails into his face, causing him to gasp. The taste of metallic touched his tongue.

Harley was cornered. The vamps were advancing on her and she was pressed against the farthest wall. Between their bodies she saw Sam being pinned down and blood dripping into his mouth, and vamps holding Dean down and one digging her fingernails into his face.

_I led them to their deaths, _she thought with horror. _They're going to be just like me. And I'm going to die._

Something inside her snapped. She locked eyes with one of the advancing vampires as it raised a long-clawed hand to strike her.

Suddenly, she was calm. Totally, utterly calm. The faces in front of her turned into ones of horror as their bodies trembled violently. Small tendrils of lightning sprung from their foreheads and covered their bodies like vines. They twisted and convulsed as though they were puppets on strings and their masters were going insane. As suddenly as they'd begun to seizure, they dropped to the floor lifelessly.

The vamp with the blade above him suddenly froze. Sam watched him convulse violently, as though possessed. He saw lightning sprout from his forehead and consume his body and he heard the zapping sound like electrocution. The vamp, and the one holding him from behind, collapsed to the ground with sickening thuds and ceased to move.

Thunderstruck, Sam gazed around and saw Harley in front of him. But it wasn't her. Her eyes and the veins in her neck and arms glowed bright white and her arm was stretched out to him. She turned to Dean, keeping her arm raised and waiting. The vamps holding Dean got up from their victim, holding up defensive hands.

"Spare us!" one shouted. "Please!"

Harley had no ears for their pleas. She made a gradual gripping motion, bringing her arm in slowly towards her chest. The vamps convulsed just like the others, twisting and shaking as snake-like lightning branches coiled around them. Their knees gave and they crumpled to the ground like ragdolls.

Dean staggered to his feet and stared at her in horror.

Harley turned to the other vampires who hadn't charged yet. They took one look at her and took off out of the door labeled "EMPLOYEES ONLY". She let them go, her bright-white eyes staring at their backs.

The light faded from her eyes and her veins, and she stood there, wobbling a little on her feet. She blinked a few times, her eyes glazed over. Even in the dark room, Sam could see trickles of blood coming out of her eyes and her nose like small red rivers.

She looked at Sam and Dean with an almost indifference. She reached into her leather jacket and withdrew a flask. She clumsily tossed it to Dean, who caught it and scrutinized it with bewilderment.

"Drink that," she said in a slurred tone. Then, without another word, her knees buckled and she hit the floor with a sickening thud.

Sam and Dean stood there, dumbfounded.

"What the hell?" Dean murmured, his voice hoarse.

Sam tiptoed gingerly towards Harley's lifeless body as if he were approaching a ticking bomb. He bent down cautiously beside her and pushed her hair aside, gazing at the blood leaking from her nose and eyes.

Dean scrutinized the flask in his hands, debating inwardly. He looked at Sam who glanced up at him, shrugged, and opened the flask. He sniffed it; immediately drew away, repulsed. "Smells like piss," he said.

"Are you seriously considering drinking that? You have no idea what it is," Sam argued.

"I've smelled this before," Dean said, raking his memory. _This smell was way too familiar... have I drank this before? _Then it dawned on him. "Sammy," he said, his voice gaining excitement. "This is the stuff I drank when I got turned into a vampire that one time." Without a second thought, he tipped the flask to his mouth. It tasted even worse than it smelled; he gagged and forcefully swallowed. He twisted the cap back on and tossed the flask to Sam. "Bottoms up."

Sam hesitated, but quickly opened the flask and drank deeply when he could suddenly hear Dean's heart beating. He swallowed, closing his eyes painfully against the horrid taste, and slowly but surely the _ba-bump, ba-bump _of Dean's heart faded. Luckily, the vampire blood hadn't traveled far enough in his veins to cause him pain from the antidote.

Sam twisted the cap back on and examined the flask. It looked like Bobby's old flask, but far more battered up and stained. This flask had certainly seen better days.

"I wonder what a vampire was doing with a flask of anti-vampire elixir," Sam wondered aloud, gazing up at Dean.

Dean shrugged.

"For kicks?" he suggested.

Sam pocketed the flask.

"For whatever reason, we need to get her somewhere safe and find out what the hell just happened and why."

Sam lifted beneath Harley's body and hoisted her up wedding-style, her head lolling backwards.

"Do you think she's some kind of Alpha-vampire?" Dean said as they walked out of the "EMPLOYEES ONLY" backroom.

"No," Sam said. "The other Alpha couldn't do anything like that. Harley's just... something else."

The Costco was absolutely deserted, but the chunks of human meat that Dean had sworn he'd seen earlier were gone. _Looks like they took snacks for the road, _he thought.

"At least all of those bastards just took off," Dean said as they walked outside. "Would've preferred to take 'em all out myself, but this works, too." He pulled open the backdoor to the Impala. "So, are we just gonna throw her off the side of the road, or what?"

Sam did a double-take at his brother.

"Dean, she saved our lives."

"Come again?"

"She ganked all those vampires for us and then had us take the anti-vampire serum. All evidence points to the fact that she had no intention of killing us after all."

Dean chewed on that food for thought for a moment, then glanced at his brother uncertainly.

"You sure about this, Sammy?"

Sam let out a breath.

"Yeah, sure," he said, more trying to convince himself than Dean. "I mean, I'm sure Kevin can find something about Harley's abilities or whatever's possessing her. She could be useful to us, Dean."

Dean shrugged indifferently.

"Or she could kill us all in our sleep. Y'know, one of those two."

Nonetheless, Sam gently laid Harley onto the Impala's backseat and closed the door. He and Dean got into the front seats, Dean in the driver's seat. He started up the old car and drove out of the Costco parking lot, the sun reflecting off of the shiny black hood and the sky a bright, happy blue. It all contrasted comically with the brothers' inner moods and worries.


	4. Englishman in New York

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hey everyone! Thank you to all who have read/reviewed/favorited/followed this story, it means so much to me! Feel free to review or private message me with comments or questions, I will answer a.s.a.p.! :) I do not own the lyrics of the song Englishman in New York by Sting.

REVIEWS ANSWERS:

BlazeMary and BrySt1: Thanks so much! I hope you continue to find this story enjoyable! :)

BlazeMary: You'll see :) All in due time!

Harley awoke chained to a bed, only able to see a tan ceiling where fan spun incessantly. She pulled on the chains that were wound around the legs of the bed, and felt their strength. Scents assaulted her nose: three people in a room together, not far from her, all men.

She sniffed again. The two Winchester brothers - _surprise, surprise - _and... an Asian kid? No, older... early twenties... a fellow hunter, probably.

Another scent from... below her? Yes, below her.

She sniffed deeply. A man, mid forties probably... his face was soiled with mud and blood, she could smell the pungent metallic and earthy odors... he wasn't making any sounds except light breathing. His heart wasn't beating... she stopped.

_Wait. What the hell is he? _He had another odor that she couldn't place, but was definitely familiar. It didn't smell like anything human, that was for sure. _Is he some kind of monster? Werewolf, maybe? _Not a vampire, she'd have known in an instant by his scent.

She pulled her senses away from the lowest floor and moved them to the next room over. The three hunters were in deep conversation - no, argument.

"Why the _hell _would you bring her back here?!" a young voice exclaimed. Definitely the Asian guy.

"We told you, Kevin, she has some kind of abilities that could be useful to us later on," Sam's reasoning voice cut through, smooth like butter and authoritative.

"Sammy," Dean interjected, his voice gruff and irritated, "she's a _monster, _she has no conscience and she'll kill us the first chance she gets!"

"Would Benny have done that?"

"_Don't you bring Benny into this," _Dean hissed venomously. The room went quiet for a moment. Then: "Benny was one of a kind and he never let me down. We don't know this girl and for all we know, she could be some psycho, serial killing blood-sucker. Sammy, it's not worth it."

"What do you want me to do?" Sam demanded, angrier now. "Cut her head off after she saved our lives - _twice?_ Give her a chance, Dean, just one. I swear, the first slip-up she makes and I won't hesitate. Deal?"

The room was filled with deafening silence as Harley listened to the verdict to her fate. She listened for three men who didn't even know her decide whether she was going to live or die. It was a partial jury, for sure, and Harley knew she was going to die. She closed her eyes and thought about her mother. Harley never got to say goodbye to her...

"Okay," the young voice named Kevin said.

Harley's heart stopped. _What?_

"What?" Dean asked, echoing Harley's thoughts.

"I think everyone should get a chance. Who knows, maybe she's worth saving."

That hit Harley hard in two different ways. First: _Dude, you're freaking amazing, thank you. _Second: _What do you mean, 'maybe worth saving?' I have a heart and soul, you son-of-a-bitch, of course I'm worth saving! _

But of course, she said not a word. Not that they could hear her from this distance, anyway.

"Fine," Dean muttered gruffly. "If anything goes wrong 'cause of her, you two are gonna deal with it. Not me."

She listened to his footsteps echoing away into the distance, ascension of metal stairs that creaked uneasily, then the open and slam of a door. A car roars to life outside - the Impala, Harley recognizes the characteristic rumble of its engine - and it takes off like a furious animal, until its roar fades away. Even from far away, she could still hear Dean swearing loudly to himself in what he thought was total privacy.

Harley shifted her attention to the heavy-booted footsteps approaching her. She shifted herself so she could turn her head; she saw a large, wooden door to her right. The footsteps thundered closer and Harley's heart beat faster. The footsteps are heavy but nimble - Sam.

The door creaked open slowly, and Harley saw a plaid torso and faded blue jeans. She shifted her head upward and her gaze meets Sam's. His long, brown hair was dishevled and his face was exhausted. He looked sickly and paler than usual.

Harley didn't say a word as Sam walked over to her with his hand clenching something. _Did he change his mind so quickly? _She wondered. _I thought he was the merciful one._

He took a seat beside her on the bed, causing it to sink a little. He lifted the hand holding something - _a key_, Harley thought with relief - and started jostling the cuffs on her right hand. He worked it free, then did her two feet and her left hand in silence.

Harley sat up, sighing in relief and rubbing her wrists. The cuffs had cut pretty deep; she had dark red lines on her wrists, but luckily no blood.

"Thanks," she said.

Sam looked at her and forced a half-smile.

From downstairs, the mysterious man began to whistle something along the lines of Bouree by Jethro Tull. Harley ignored it and kept her gaze on Sam. Something washed over her and she suddenly felt famished. The pumping of blood in Sam's veins was nearly deafening.

"If you step out of line, I'll be fixing those cuffs back on you," he warned, unsmiling now.

Harley nodded obediently, still rubbing her wrists. The skin tingled with pain but it was no match for the growing hunger inside of her, now that Sam was here and she could smell his blood.

"Can I... leave? Like, this room?" she asked lamely, almost desperately.

Sam nodded and held out a hand.

"I'll escort you. You gotta stay with me."

Harley hugged herself, closed her eyes, and breathed slowly, honing in on her self-control.

"I can't touch you."

"What's wrong?"

She imagined herself taking Sam's hand and, with her fantastic, vampiric strength, forcing him towards her and sinking her fangs into his neck without a second thought.

"I haven't fed in several hours. I had a cooler with donated blood bags in my truck, where is it?"

"At the motel, where you left your truck," Sam said. She heard his heart beat faster.

Sam deliberated for a moment.

"Okay, stay here and don't move."

He took off down a hallway to the right, his loud footsteps echoing. Kevin called out to him from the left, asking him what was wrong. Kevin's footsteps approached the room and Harley couldn't ignore the loud, delicious pounding of his heart. With a pang of horror, she realized his blood was AB+. Suddenly, she wished she was chained to the bed again.

Kevin poked his head in and saw her, shivering with hungry rage, her hair disheveled and hanging around her like a curtain. His eyes widened in fear.

"Oh, my God," he whispered.

"MOVE!" Sam shouted at him, nearly throwing him aside. He bounded into the room and stopped in front of Harley. He stabbed his arm with a syringe and withdrew tasty, delicious blood: B- type. Not her favorite but still quite good.

He withdrew the syringe from the underside of his arm and picked up the large cup he'd placed on the ground. He squirted the blood into the cup, nearly driving Harley crazy with sweet sloshing of the blood in the plastic cup. As soon as he'd extended the cup to her, she grabbed it from his hands and drank deeply. She could feel the blood dripping down her chin and onto the bed sheets, but she didn't care. She drank like a man dying of thirst drinking a bottle water.

After a few gulps of the ruby, delectable liquid, Harley's insane hunger faded as quickly as it had come. She felt her mind clear and the monster within her falling back into slumber and the anti-vampire serum in her bloodstream taking control.

"Thanks," she said, still short of breath.

Sam nodded, gazing at her warily. Kevin walked in tentatively, scrutinizing her as one might examine a wild tigress at the zoo.

"So, just like that, you're all calm?" he asked her, speaking gingerly.

Harley shrugged in agreement.

"I've been dosing myself with anti-vampire serum, so it's kind of in my bloodstream now. Once my thirst is quenched, I'm back to normal and not all... y'know." She brushed her messy hair out of her face and regained her breath. "It'll wear off in about a week, though, so I need to make some more."

"Where can we find the ingredients?" Sam asked her, standing on the opposite side of the bedroom.

"I gotta go search for them," Harley explained, licking excess blood from around her mouth. Kevin grimaced in disgust out of the corner of her eye. "I can normally sniff them out, but I'll have to get out of here to catch the scents. I'm assuming it worked for you back at the Costco?"

"Yeah, it did," Sam said, then he smiled a little. "Thanks, by the way."

Harley shrugged again, feeling a little uncomfortable with all of this attention.

"No biggie. So, do I have to stay here, or...?"

"You're gonna stay here with us and we're gonna figure out what happened to you back there."

Harley was about to ask what happened when, with the speed of a lightning strike, she remembered everything. She remembered being cornered, seeing Sam and Dean ingesting the vampire blood, and then feeling so completely calm. Then the vampires were electrocuted by something, but how was that possible?

"How did you do it?" Kevin asked her.

"Do what?"

"How'd you kill all those vampires?" he clarified, genuinely curious. She heard his heartbeat increase a little with excitement.

"I... I don't know," she said, bewildered. "How could I have killed them? They were electrocuted, I saw it myself."

"You did that," Sam said. "You just... your eyes went completely white and so did your veins. I have no idea where the lightning came from, but you must've conjured it somehow because they dropped dead when you focused on them."

Speechless. No words could explain how utterly dumbfounded Harley was. She ran a nervous hand through her messy hair, internally screaming with confusion. She suddenly felt claustrophobic with the two hunters staring at her like she was kind of specimen under a microscope.

"Can I be alone?" she asked abruptly and tersely. "I - I need to think."

Sam and Kevin got up quickly as if shocked.

"Yeah, no problem. Take your time," Sam stammered, and he left. Kevin glanced back at her for a moment, his eyes full of fear and pity, and he closed the door behind him.

Harley sat on the bed, her chin stained red and her fingers dyed the same color. She clasped her hands together, closed her eyes, and tried to remain calm.

The craziest thing was, she knew Sam was right, deep down. It was totally insane, but it felt right to her intuitively. She looked at her hands covered in red and wondered how she'd been able to wield lightning like that.

Her chest hitched and her throat burned. She was so confused and so alone. Sam and Dean didn't care about her and she knew that. She was just a tool for their "greater cause" or whatever they called it.

No one cared about her.

_Except Mom, _she thought fondly. _Mom always put me first... _A pang of homesickness stabbed her in the heart and she fought back the tears.

"I don't drink coffee, I take tea, my dear," a smooth voice sang.

Harley paused and listened. It was coming from below her.

"I like my toast done on one side," it continued in a suave British accent. "You hear it in my accent when I talk, I'm an Englishman in New York..."

She immediately recognized it as one of her favorite songs by Sting. The man downstairs continued singing and slowly but surely Harley felt comforted by his voice. Halfway through, Harley was singing alongside him.

"I'm an alien, I'm a legal alien, I'm an Englishman in New York..." she sang lightly in duet, a smile tugging at the edges of her mouth.

She closed her eyes and remembered her mother playing that song amongst the others on Sting's _Fields of Gold_ album and her mother singing it to her to help her fall asleep or during thunderstorms when she got scared. She always told her that her father had loved Sting and that her mother had fallen in love with the artist when her father left them. Sting reminded her mother of her father.

"Thank you," Harley whispered to the man downstairs.

Whoever it was down there, Harley wanted to meet him. _Anyone with a liking for Sting and a voice like that ought to be someone worth meeting_, she reasoned.


	5. For Whom the Bell Tolls

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hello everyone! Thanks so much for reading and following this story, it means so much to me! I'm sorry I haven't updated this lately, I've been very busy but hopefully I'll be able to update more regularly now.

So, sit and eat a grapefruit and enjoy Chapter 5!

Far out beyond Lebanon, Kansas, a group of men and women stalked the forest. Their faces were set and unflinching. If you saw them passing by, you'd say they were dead set on some sort of goal, judging by the way they walked in sync together with such ghostly determination.

_Is it revenge? _You'd wonder. _Settling a debt? Hunting something... or some_one_? Or is it something far sinister? _

As it goes, luck had turned tail and ran at the sight of this group. No, they were not walking with their blood boiling with anger or betrayal. They were walking in righteous anger, or at least that's the way they saw it. It wasn't just revenge they wanted. They wanted to carry out an extermination.

The group of men and women strode onward, large pine trees towering over them like death omens, casting mammoth shadows upon their faces that was only broken by a splatter of red moonlight. You read that correctly - _red _moonlight. Was it a heavenly sign - or hellish?

The ghosts of the night approached a lonely cabin built in the middle of a clearing in the forest. The windows were illuminated from within by a warm, yellow light; the curtains were drawn. The cabin itself seemed innocent, like it belonged to a loving family taking a camping vacation. Oh, if only that were the case.

The men and women approached the cabin, ascended the short three stairs to the porch, and their leader delivered three powerful knocks to the door in a rhythmic pattern. The door creaked open, held by a man with sandy-brown hair, a blood-stained polo shirt, and deep, black eyes.

"Come in," he said, a sinister smile plastered on his face like some sort of infernal mannequin. "The Queen is waiting for you." The group noticed more men of the same sinister look were stationed around the room, as though pulled out of a horror movie.

The group walked in, all except the leader suddenly less determined. Fear reflected in the shiftiness of their eyes. Their leader, a woman with light blonde hair that hung in a disheveled curtain around her face, harbored insanity in her eyes.

A woman stood near the dormant fireplace, the yellow light from the lamp beside her glowing against the black of her leather jacket and long jeans. Her fiery red hair and bright red lipstick contrasted greatly with the darkness of her outfit and mood. She turned to the leader and smiled cordially. If snakes could smile...

"Hello, Serena. My men received your call and told me you and your motley crew would be coming around here. Nice touch with the demonic call, by the way."

Serena didn't smile back. Her followers shifted on their feet, very uncomfortable.

"I had no other way of reaching you. We require a favor of you and in return you will have our services."

The red-headed woman's smile slipped off her face. She looked very dangerous now; the serpent in the garden had shone its true colors.

"And what favor is this?"

Serena balled up her fists and clenched her teeth. Her righteous fury was almost unbearable. The red-headed woman noticed and was intrigued.

"A fledgling of ours whom Shiloh, our... _ex_-leader... turned a year ago came back. She decimated all except us eight," she said, gesturing to her followers behind her.

The red-headed woman cocked her head, like a confused teacher to a babbling pupil.

"All by herself?" she asked patronizingly.

"Yes and no," Serena growled. "She had those damn Winchesters with her."

A knowing smile spread across the red-headed woman's face. She chuckled, shaking her head.

"So, she turned hunter and brought those bastard brothers with her. Your nest should've been ready. Let this be a lesson -,"

"_You don't understand!" _Serena shouted. The red-headed woman's smile vanished and her brow darkened. She didn't tolerate being shouted at by an inferior being. But Serena continued on bravely and irately, "Her eyes went bright white and so did her veins and she... she electrocuted our brethren! I've never seen anything like it! This may be your area of expertise, Abbadon."

"You said she _electrocuted _your vampire scum?"

Serena nodded, her teeth gritting at 'scum'.

"Yes, Abbadon. The lightning just came out of nowhere. It was like something..."

"Angelic, perhaps?" a young male vampire offered gingerly, his long brown, dirty hair making a curtain around his face.

That struck Abbadon hard. _This girl may be of use to me_, she thought. _She can't stay in the hands of the Winchesters with the power she possesses. If she is an angel, or of some angelic force, then I must seize her for my army against that babbling fool, Crowley. _She forced a cordial smile at the vampire pack.

"Alright, I'll help you out," she said slowly, watching the figures in front of her relax. She exchanged glances with her demon minions and then looked back at Serena. "On one condition. You capture the girl and bring her to me - _alive. _Do you understand?"

"Yes... _my Queen_," Serena added emphatically, a smile playing on her lips. She wanted to be on the winning side of this war and the only way to do that was to kiss up to this arrogant bitch.

Abbadon grinned at the flattery. They were finally recognizing her as their true monarch.

"Now go, and don't keep me waiting. And do not worry, Serena, once I'm done with her she will begging for death."

Serena smiled, her vampiric soul filling with triumph and pride. _Justice shall be served, _she thought. When her and her brethren left, Abbadon began to chuckle.

"So, we've got another angel on our hands." She turned to the demon that had answered the door earlier. "What do you say, Salazar? Shall we go raise some hell?"

"Indeed, my Queen," he replied back, his tone and smile hellishly sadistic. He was a mannequin man from the deepest, darkest depths of hell, and the other demons mirrored him horribly. Abbadon let out a laugh of arrogant triumph; the laugh of a conquering queen dead set on victory. The serpent of the garden had sent out her minions to do her terrible bidding.

The ceiling fan spun around ceaselessly, sending cold air around the room. Harley sat on her bed, entranced by the spinning wooden planks. If she stared at the middle of the fan, the brown planks blurred together; if she focused on one plank, then she could follow its path around the middle of the fan uninterrupted. The latter normally would give her a headache and she would have to set her eyes on the wall across from her to calm down the pulsating temples in her head.

Harley Jasper was utterly bored. She wished she had some kind of instrument to play to pass the time while she was under house arrest in this... whatever this place was.

"Hello?" she called out for the umpteenth time.

No reply. She called again, but received silence. She listened to the rooms away from her. There were the _wsh-wsh_ of turning pages and light coughs and the occasional scraping of a chair on hardwood floor. Sometimes Sam or Dean would speak and Harley would listen to them discuss things she didn't understand - something about falling angels and whatever or whoever Crowley was - or they'd talk about her and what she'd done in the Costco a day ago. (_Was it a day ago? A week, or a month? It's so hard to tell.)_

Sometimes she'd listen for the man downstairs and his singing voice. Not that the voice was very talented or anything, but it had a nice smoothness and confidence that demanded attention. Unfortunately, the man didn't sing again or make any sounds except for the occasional sigh or sneeze.

Harley sighed and got up from the bed. What better way to waste time than to rummage around a mysterious room that she'd discovered only a day before by being shackled to the bed inside it? Since she'd spoken with Sam and Kevin, she hadn't seen any sign of life since.

She walked up to the desk across from her bed and pulled open a random drawer closest to her. Inside it were a pad of paper and a few orphaned pens.

A lightbulb went off in Harley's mind. She grabbed the pad of paper and a pen and dashed back to the bed, suddenly excited. She plopped down on the comforter and uncapped the pen, her mighty sword of ink and magic. Across the page from left to right she drew six straight lines and closed them off with short lines to make a long rectangle with four lines inside. She drew a treble clef sign on the furthest side on the left.

Then she closed her eyes and felt for a rhythm. A chair scraped the hardwood floor from several yards away, creating a sharp screech that would be a G natural.

_Wsh-wsh _went the papers. _Stomp-stomp_ of footsteps - probably Sam's, judging by the heaviness - on the floor. _Screeeech _went the chair.

Harley jotted down two connected eighth notes of low E natural, two eighth notes separated by eighth note-rests in low B flat, then a note of G natural. She rewrote twice to make a pattern. She paused, deliberating.

Then she clapped - _no, that's not quite right -_ snapped her fingers twice as two quarter notes - _ah, perfect! _

She rewrote the previous pattern again, and listened and thought and felt. When no other sounds came to her, she put down the notebook and drummed her hands on it. She worked out a rhythm that had the right hand drum then the left and the right again in a triplet-eighth note pattern, then a quick snap of the fingers.

Harley smiled, radiating joy and serenity. She loved to play music, but composing her own brought on a feeling like nothing else.

Suddenly, the hunters in the other room began to speak. Harley paused her joyful work and listened intently.

"How you feeling, Sammy?" Dean asked him. His voice was ever-so-slightly slurred; he'd been drinking while researching, apparently. His heart beat was calm and methodical, thanks to the strong liquor.

"No different from the usual," Sam responded curtly. _Wsh-wsh, _he turned the pages of his book. His heartbeat was slow and labored; Harley was suddenly aware that he wasn't just exhausted but very ill. Like, deathly ill. Harley was surprised he was able to do research in his condition.

Perhaps Dean was expecting more of an answer, but he didn't receive one. Kevin swallowed, and set down a pencil on what sounded like a hardwood table. His heartbeat accelerated with anxiety.

"Hey, Dean," Kevin said, changing the subject. "Doesn't Harley have some stuff back at that motel you guys stayed at?"

Harley raised an eyebrow. _What are you getting at, Kevin?_

"I dunno, maybe," Dean said, uninterested. _Wsh-wsh _went the pages.

"Shouldn't you... take her back there? To get her stuff, I mean." Dean must've given him the stink-eye, because he hurriedly added, "Well, if she's going to be staying here with us, shouldn't she have, I dunno, a change of clothes? And you said she was a musician, right? She probably wants to get her instruments back, those can be really expensive."

Harley could practically hear Dean rolling his eyes. _At least they're not planning to rob me._

Then, to her great surprise and discomfort:

"...Well, I could use a drive." His tone was bitter, and Harley guessed he was glancing at his brother.

_Screeeech _went the chair on the hardwood floor. Harley heard the last of his drink slosh down his throat, then footsteps approaching her prison cell of a room.

_Well, shit, _Harley thought. _I'm going to be stuck in a car with him. Freakin' fantastic. _

From downstairs, the British man began to whistle a catchy tune; it was a little comforting.

The door creaked open and Dean stepped in, clad in a green plaid shirt and white undershirt and dirty jeans. His face was unshaven but it looked good on him. His hair didn't seem to get disheveled; it stayed in perfect form on his head.

His green eyes found her sitting on her bed, and he cocked an eyebrow.

"What's with the pencil scratches?"

"They're not pencil scratches," she said haughtily, a little insulted. "It's music."

Dean looked at it more closely, his eyes narrowed.

"What song?"

Harley shrugged.

"I dunno, haven't named it yet."

Dean's eyebrows went up for a moment, then he brushed it aside.

"Alright, we're going to go get your stuff that sleazy motel. We're taking my car, so I'm gonna lay down some ground rules. First, no feet on the dash. I will personally slit your throat if I see those muddy boots on my baby's dash. Second, only I drive my baby, so don't ask. Third, driver gets to pick the music and shotgun shuts his - _her -_ cakehole, got it? And if you pick at the upholstery or sneeze on the windows and _then_ wipe it on the upholstery, I will personally tie you by your neck with some rope to the back fender and drive all the way back to the bunker with you like a bunch of 'Just Married' tin cans. You got that?"

Harley just rolled her eyes.

"I'll do all of those in order in the first five minutes... dude, I'm _kidding, _no need to pull the gun out."

Dean clenched his jaw and brought his hand away from the gun stashed in the back of his pants.

"Whatever, just quit the musical pencil-scratching and let's go."

He walked out the door, and Harley hurried after him. For the first time, she got to see the hallway; it was painted a pale yellow with various picture frames of strange men holding monster heads. She saw one man as she passed the picture with a large mustache and a decapitated vampire head lifted aloft in his right hand; it sent shivers down her spine and reminded her who she was dealing with.

_I should probably tone down on the sarcasm, _she decided.

They left the hallway and entered a much wider room. With marble columns inlaid with the pale walls, hardwood floors (_I knew it, _I thought triumphantly), long rows of bookcases lined with endless multitudes of books, and an enormous hardwood table with old-fashioned lamps and wooden chairs, it was the largest and most incredible library I'd ever seen. Up ahead, seated in two of the chairs across from each other, were Sam and Kevin, studying diligently. They looked up at us as we approached, mildly interested. Kevin smiled pleasantly yet warily at me, but Sam seemed to stare through us towards something else, his eyes glazed over and his complexion pale and sickly.

"We'll be back in an hour, if nothing tries to kill us," Dean said casually, then kept walking past. I returned Kevin's smile and jogged to catch up with Dean, who briskly walked into the next room. This room was quite something: large and grey, the room towered immensely and had a large, black-painted iron staircase leading to a rusted door. In the middle of the room lay a long table with a map of the world. Laid within it appeared to be little light bulbs that would probably light up to specify a location.

"Damn," I breathed. "What is this place?"

Dean and I ascended the staircase in silence and let ourselves out. I was met with the smells of the outdoors: numerous hearts beating at once from multiple distances, the smell of dewy grass and pine in the air, along with rotting roadkill and gasoline on asphalt. I glanced behind me and saw a simple, rusted bunker entrance that might've led to a small room to the eyes of any passerby.

_Damn, this is like Harry Potter. All the rooms are bigger on the inside, _I thought with wonder.

Down the road several miles, I heard a man and woman were arguing about directions while driving.

"There's a couple fighting over directions down the road, I'd be careful driving if I were you," I blurted out.

He stopped and stared at me, then looked down the road. It would've looked deadly silent to him, but to me the couple's argument was increasing in volume and they were starting to fight over the wheel.

"In fact, let's just wait a moment," I said. "They should be barreling down the road any minute now."

Dean scrutinized me for a moment.

"Okay, how the hell can you hear that? There's nobody there. In fact, we're in the middle of nowhere, there's _nobody _around here."

I glanced at him.

"One of the perks of being undead, you get enhanced hearing."

He just nodded, assuming to take my word for it.

"That must be a real bitch sometimes," he murmured, perhaps more to himself.

I looked at him until he met my gaze and said, very seriously, "You can hear every couple at the motel having sex. Every. Single. One."

He grimaced and then shrugged agreeably.

"At least you don't have to pay for porn."

I grimaced and made a gagging sound.

"God, I wouldn't have ever paid for that, anyway. Godawful stuff, I don't know how some people can watch that. Or _read _it."

"This is gonna be a long car ride..." he muttered to himself, gazing down the road.

_Lo and behold, _a red Prius came speeding down the road at at least seventy miles per hour with two very angry people in the front seats. Wind whipped our hair as they blew by, their screaming clearly audible through the car; it fell into the distance as the car disappeared from view.

"Damn, you weren't kidding," Dean mused.

"I'm glad I can use my superpowers for good instead of evil," I muttered as we walked to the black Impala. Dean smirked, then quickly hid it as he got into the car.

"Alright, we're gonna listen to Metallica -"

"And I'm gonna shut my cakehole. Got it," I interrupted curtly.

"You betcha," he said, and cranked up the radio very loudly. It pierced my eardrums with my enhanced hearing and I covered my ears. He turned it down slightly so I could bear it but still loud enough for discomfort. Dean stepped on the gas and the Impala lurched forward and took off down the road like a speed demon.

**_Oh crap, I'm gonna die in this car, _****I thought, bracing myself in the passenger seat. ****_I'm gonna fly right through the window and get decapitated and that's how I'm gonna go out. Freakin' fantastic. _**


	6. Another One Bites the Dust

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thank you so much to everyone who is reading this story and following/favoriting! It means soooo much to me :) **

**Feel free to review with any thoughts or constructive criticisms on how I've displayed the characters - I'm open to some insight and help! :)**

The afternoon sunlight shined through the windows of the _Lone Sunflower _bar, illuminating a square on the hardwood floor. The bar had a few hungover and troubled regulars, but was otherwise empty. The bartender lazily wiped the polished, wooden counter out of pure boredom; he was an old man in his fifties', balding and sporting a scraggly beard and a dirty white wifebeater.

The bell on top of the entrance door clinged dutifully as a group of young-looking men and women stepped inside. A woman with hair like a rat's nest seemed to lead the group; she glanced around the bar, her eyes scrutinizing every nook and cranny, every drunk regular.

The bartender noticed them and called out.

"Hey, why don't ya'll come grab a seat here and I'll get ya'll a drink, eh?" He gestured to the empty seats in front of him.

The female leader glanced at her followers, nodded, and walked forward. She had a slight jump to her step, like a predator stalking her prey. She approached the bar and laid a hand on the countertop.

"I've got a few questions, for you, Mr...?"

"Biggs. Mr. Biggs, to ya." The old, smelly man extended a hand to her. She gave it a look of disgust before reluctantly taking his hand and shaking it halfheartedly.

"Mr. Biggs," the woman began, her following glancing around at the sleeping and

oblivious drunks around them, "I was wondering if you'd had a certain woman come in here lately. I believe she went by Harley?"

Mr. Biggs stopped wiping the counter and deliberated the name. He mouthed 'Harley' several times, furrowing his brow.

"Rings a bell, that it does. Hmm, where have I heard it before?... Ah, yes!" he exclaimed, causing a drunk to startle awake from a table near the counter. His head, as soon as it had risen, slammed loudly down against the wooden table and his snoring resumed. "She came in about two nights ago, I think. Gave an outstanding performance, played all sorts of instruments. Quite a talented girl, I'll tell ya, I told Jimmy over there - OY, JIMMY! Eh, he's asleep, been drinking a lot since his lady done left 'im - If that girl were lookin' for a nice man for herself, she wouldn't have to look hard at all in a town like this, ain't got many girl like her 'ere, I'll tell ya-"

The woman reached across the table and grabbed a fistful of his dirty wifebeater. She glared daggers into his eyes and Mr. Biggs began to tremble.

"Listen, you filthy oaf of a creature," the woman hissed. Her followers grinned horribly behind her, enjoying Mr. Biggs' fear. "Tell me when Harley Jasper was here and when she left and where she went."

"Sh-she was 'ere 'round ten at night," the bartender stammered, eyes round with terror. "Sh-she left 'round midnight, I dunno where she went!" The woman bared her fangs in his face and he howled in torturous horror. "OKAY, OKAY! THERE'S A MOTEL DOWN THE ROAD CALLED KANSAS NIGHTS, SHE PROBABLY STAYED THERE! I SWEAR, THAT'S ALL I KNOW, I SWEAR TO GOD!"

The woman smiled, her fangs still glistening in the sunlight pouring through the window. The rest of the regular slept soundly, utterly oblivious to the unfortunate scene happening in front of them.

"Wonderful," the woman said. "Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Biggs." With that, she grabbed his neck with her other hand and pulled him across the bar countertop and sank her fangs into his neck. She drank deeply until the poor bartender stopped squirming and hung across the counter lifelessly. She brought her head back up, mouth stained with red, and grinned toothily at her envious followers.

"What are you all standing around for?" she asked rhetorically and sadistically. She gestured grandly to the sleeping drunks around them. "There's food right here and it's not going anywhere."

The poor drunks didn't have enough time to utter their last words before they were sucked dry and left to rot in the sun of a cloudless Tuesday afternoon.

* * *

Around the fourth Metallica song, Harley spoke up and asked what other songs Dean had in the car. Dean let her look through his cassette tapes as long as she didn't break them (he still felt jumpy whenever she let them clatter together while searching through the little cardboard box he kept them in). After a few moments, he saw her lift one aloft out of his peripheral vision. He glanced at her and saw her holding up one of his AC/DC cassette tapes.

"AC/DC," he observed. "Good choice. Best band for long car rides over eight hours. Keeps you from losing your marbles on the road, y'know?"

Harley nodded.

"I haven't heard all of their songs," she said, handing him the tape. "But I really like 'Highway to Hell' and 'Back in Black' the best."

Dean couldn't stop himself from smiling. _You just can't hate a fellow AC/DC lover. It's gotta be against the rules of the universe or some kind of crap._

"Alright, let's pop it in," he said, sliding in the tape. The old cassette player clicked and whirred for a few moments. Impatiently, Dean smacked it; the cassette player realized its mistake and obeyed its master and the song began.

The awesome guitar riff started up, belonging to none other than Highway to Hell. Both Harley and Dean began nodding their heads to the beat. Dean mouthed the words along with the lead singer, Brian Johnson, and then began singing; he completely forgot about Harley in the passenger seat.

"I'm on a highway to _HELL!" _- head bob -"Highway to _HELL!" _

Then it occurred to him that another voice was backing him up. It was screechy and high but matched the voice in the song; Dean glanced at Harley and saw her singing, and it occurred to him that she was imitating Brian Johnson. A bright smile blossomed on his face as she bobbed her head, whipping her hair, and he continued singing at the top of his lungs.

He felt so comfortable and calm and at peace, it was as if Sammy were sitting next to him... _No, not even Sammy. Maybe Cas when he's not all 'doom and gloom'..._

It's safe to say that Dean, for the whole ride to the sketchy motel of Kansas Nights, completely forgot that he was singing along to AC/DC to someone who was anything but human.

* * *

Back at the bunker, Sam and Kevin worked diligently at their research. Kevin sipped on his glass of milk as he poured over the Angel tablet, his eyes never straying from the etched markings in the stone. He had a piece of paper and a pencil beside him to jot down translation notes.

Sam flipped through a particularly large book with thick and faded binding, on which words read _The Men of Letters' Guide to Psychics and Beasties of Psychic Nature. _Sam's long, luscious locks made a brunette curtain around his face as he poured over the book. After five more minutes, Sam emerged from his book with a look of utter exhaustion. He ran a hand over his hair and let it fall back into its perfect place before standing up from the table.

"I'm gonna take a break and see if I can get anything out of Crowley," Sam announced.

Kevin glanced up at him momentarily.

"Okay, just don't let him talk crap to you. Punch him a few times, for me."

Sam just nodded, not really hearing what Kevin said. He shuffled away and down the hallway. He made a quick stop at his room to down several pills of Ibuprofen with a cup of water he'd left on his nightstand. Sam knew the pills would make his stomach upset in the next couple hours, but it took away the stabbing pain in his head that made the words on the book pages dance before his eyes.

Then he walked diligently and with less of a shuffle towards Room 7B. This room held many archived materials that Sam, Dean, and Kevin had been consulting regularly for extra research. Sam made a mental note to check out some of the archived materials on people - or monsters - that could possess psychic abilities. But he continued forward through the archiving room and pushed open two doors into the hidden dungeon.

There sat a man chained round the neck, arms, and feet in front of a metal table. He wore a scuffed-up black suit with black undershirt and black handkerchief. His face was unshaven and bloody and his eyes were twinkling and mischievous. He observed Sam with a mocking grin as he walked forward.

"'Ello, Moose," he said in his British accent. "Fancying a chat now, eh?"

Sam said not a word. He merely stepped forward, pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket along with a pen, and slammed it on the table in front of the man.

"Give us names, Crowley," Sam ordered firmly. "You're our captive, you do as we say."

Crowley glanced at the paper, then back up at Sam.

"You're a persistent one, Moose, but no amount of torture shall sway me. Don't you think I've done all of this to myself already, just for kicks? Honestly, all of this ordering and threatening just turns me on." He flashed Sam a suggestive smile and winked.

Sam scowled in frustration and stormed out of the dungeon, slamming the doors shut behind him.

Crowley sat alone in the dark, utterly alone with his thoughts. _This _had been the true torture, being subject to his horrible thoughts without distractions. He sat and sighed; he'd already been bombarded with the worst his mind could concoct, to be honest. It was just quiet in there now. So he began to quietly sing another Sting song, one of his many favorites, choosing "Russians" this time. Maybe he'd get through all of the great singer's albums and still be locked in this godforsaken dungeon. _Damn those Winchesters, _he thought angrily. _Bollocks!_

* * *

After helping her repack all of her stuff into her suitcase and stuff all of her instruments into her pickup truck, Dean got back into his Chevy Impala '67 and Harley into her Chevy Silverado '94 truck. The engines roared to life and the Impala and the Silverado pulled out of the Kansas Nights parking lot and onto the open road.

Harley felt a surge of relief at being back in her own truck. She popped in a Fall Out Boy CD and played it loudly as she followed Dean back to the bunker. She was singing loudly along to "The Phoenix" when she noticed Dean slowing down. Curiosity sparking, she turned down the music and glanced out the passenger window as she drove by. Across the road at an old, rusty bar, three police cars and an ambulance sat in the parking lot behind yellow police tape. Harley immediately recognized the bar as _The Lone Sunflower; _shivers went down her spine.

The door to the bar opened and a gurney was rolled out to the ambulance. A body was hidden under a white sheet on the gurney, but the white sheet had a deep red stain near the top. A bloody arm hung over the side of the gurney.

Harley's heart filled with empathy. _What horrible person could have done this? ... Or thing?_

Dean sped up the Impala, much faster than before; Harley stomped on the accelerator. Her phone rang in her the cup holder. It was an unknown number; Harley looked up and saw, through Dean's back window, his hand holding something to his ear. She picked up her cell phone and answered the call.

"How the hell did you get my number?" she asked before Dean could speak.

"I got it off your phone while you were packing," he said, as if it were obvious. "Hey, isn't that the bar you performed at?"

"Yeah. Scary stuff, huh?"

"There's no way some random guy did that," Dean said, sounding certain. Sounding like a very experienced hunter. "That's definitely our kind of thing."

"_Our_?" Harley asked, confused.

"Me and Sam's."

"Yeah, of course. I'm just a vampire who hunted vampires, y'know, I don't have tons of credentials for this kind of stuff."

"Well, you're about to get some experience. We're gonna check out that place and make sure nothing weird-ass-ghost-related is going on."

"By 'we' you mean you and Sam, right?"

The other line was quiet. They left the town and came into the forested part of Lebanon, Kansas, near the bunker. Pine trees whooshed by the cars in green and brown blurs. _If there's a cop around, I'm gonna get arrested for insane speeding, _Harley realized.

"Sammy's really sick. Like, deathly sick. I can't have him walking around in the open air where he can catch something or get killed even faster. You're stuck with us and you're gonna fill in for him. Or I can just cut your head off and save you the trouble-"

"No, no, that won't be necessary," Harley said quickly. "I'll help out, I was just clarifying. No need to get your tighty-whities in a wad."

They pulled up to the bunker, Dean slowed down and parked, Harley parked behind him. Harley hung up the phone and quickly added the unknown number to her contacts as "Dean Winchester." She noticed idly that he was the first contact in her phone beside 911; she'd gotten a new phone after running away and deleted all of her contacts, including her Mom's. She felt a pang of homesickness as she remembered her mom. She closed her eyes and forced the painful thoughts away.

_Looks like this is gonna be a new beginning, _she thought as she got out of her truck. Dean was opening the door to the bunker and waving at her to hurry up. She picked up the pace and met him at the door. _Or an ugly end._


	7. Lonely Boy

**Hello, everyone! I am SOOOOOOOO sorry about how I've not updated for a month and a half! I had the worst writer's block and I just recently had the inspiration for this chapter. Don't worry, ladies and germs, this story will be underway once more! Review please and tell me what you think, and let me know if I captured Crowley effectively and what I can do better. Thanks, you're all amazing! :D And thanks a bunch to those who continued reading in my absence, you all give me motivation to keep writing! :)**

**By the way, I wanted to say 2 things: **

**1) I don't own Supernatural, any of the characters, or any quotes used. This is merely fanfiction for my enjoyment and others. **

**2) From Chapter 4 on, I have begun using song titles for chapter titles. They all reflect events in the chapter, especially if you listen to the mood and lyrics of the song used. I do not own these songs or their titles. Let me know what you all think about the song choices, and feel free to listen to those as you read the chapters! :)**

**(Had to get all that legal stuff out of the way, sorry :))**

* * *

Harley paused at the door, sweating nervously. Her hand shook as she gripped the door knob and pushed the door open. The door creaked ominously, like long, rotting nails on a chalkboard. The rattle of chains echoed in the room from the dungeon across from her; it was held from her sight by a set of two large, steel shelves. Sam had told her to just pull open the shelves as hard as she could and they should swing open.

Harley was really beginning to regret signing up for the duty of questioning the dungeon victim. But Sam and Dean were having trouble getting through to the demon, she had learned earlier when they were complaining about it and she asked them about it. Reluctantly, they told her they needed names of demons from him. Kevin freaked out when Sam started to gently ask him if he was up to it, so Harley volunteered. In retrospect, it seemed really stupid and dangerous, but she was desperate to win the hunters' favor and stay alive for as long as possible. And if interrogating the King of Hell took care of that, then so be it.

The vampire crossed the room and found a single string hanging from the ceiling; she pulled it and the room was illuminated. The room was lined on three sides with bookshelves and filing cabinets.

_The archive room, _Harley thought. _A.k.a., the torture chamber. _

"Moose?" a voice called out from behind the shelves directly in front of her. Harley froze; ice cold fear crawled up her spin and tickled her skin, making her break out in goosebumps. The voice was weak and husky, like someone who had gone without water for too long. "Is that you?"

Harley's voice lumped in her throat and she swallowed. She could hear the demon's blood pulsing through its veins and found it strangely alluring, which only terrified her more. Sam and Dean had filled her in extensively on who exactly the King of Hell was, and how brutal and bloody his methods were. They had both been reluctant to let her do this, but she had insisted relentlessly. She needed brownie points from them, because brownie points equaled more days to see the next sunrise.

And now, when an ex-torturer sat just a few yards away beyond the shelves, Harley felt the cold grip of horror around her heart. With another deep breath, she crossed the room and pushed open the steel shelves.

They swung open slowly and with an awful screech, scraping across the concrete floor. Harley looked directly ahead, and saw a man chained to a metal chair before a metal table. His face was scruffy with brown facial hair that matched the somewhat wispy yet full hair on his head and complimented his light blue eyes. An intricate pattern was painted onto the floor around where he sat; a circle with a star on the inside, with elaborate, religious-looking symbols in the spaces.

_Well, this is one hot mess, _Harley thought. _One thing's for sure, he certainly doesn't look like a king of the damned._

The demon's eyes probed hers and his face broke out into a wide smile.

"Ah, aren't you a sight for sore eyes," he said in a hoarse, British accent. He looked her up and down without shame; Harley tried to look past it and stay focused. "What is a pretty young thing like you doing down here?" he purred seductively.

Without a single word, Harley glanced to the side and spotted a spare metal chair. She grabbed it and dragged it across the concrete floor to the table across from the demon, letting the metal legs scrape the floor with a horrible screeching noise. Harley plopped down on the chair and propped her elbows on the table, folding her arms.

"So, I hear you're the King of Hell," she said conversationally, ignoring his previous question.

"That I am, love," Crowley responded. "King of Hell, King of the Crossroads, King of _Love_... just a few of what many call me." He winked at her flirtatiously, to which Harley didn't flinch. Inwardly, she felt incredibly awkward; but, from years of performing onstage, Harley Jasper had become a master of her outer emotions and currently wore a mask devoid of emotion.

"That's nice," she said disinterestedly. She couldn't help but notice the flicker of disappointment in Crowley's eyes; he was used to intimidating and seducing people on a regular basis, it seemed. "But let's be adults, shall we? I've got a proposition for you."

Crowley leaned forward in his chair, his shackled hands resting between his legs. His eyes searched hers for deceit, but seemed to find none.

"Normally I'm the one doing the deals," he said, "but I'll hear what you have to say."

Harley wanted to smile; this was working out quite well. But she didn't dare get cocky now; her work just barely begun.

"I need demon names. So, for every demon name, I will tell you one thing about myself."

Crowley raised an eyebrow at her.

"And how is that appealing to me?" he asked, his voice low and still somewhat seductive; Harley found it hard to tell whether he was still doing it on purpose or not.

"Isn't blackmail one of your favorite hobbies?" Harley asked rhetorically, recalling from her memory from what Sam had told her. "Even an idiot could see that I'm practically handing him a 'Get Out of Jail and Throw Me In Free' card."

Crowley smirked at her and leaned back, the shackles shifting and clanking together.

"Ah, but I'm no idiot, love. How do you expect me to take such a thin deal when I don't even know your name?"

"Harley Jasper," Harley said curtly. She reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out a piece of crumpled paper and a black crayon and set it on the table. "I'm twenty-five years old and I've had mild social anxiety since the bullying started in first grade. Happy?"

Crowley smiled broadly; it sent shivers down Harley's spine.

"It's a deal." He glanced at the paper and crayon, then up at her. He glanced down at the paper and crayon, during which Harley allowed herself to let out a breath, ever so slowly. She froze a little when Crowley glanced up at her quickly when she exhaled quietly and struggled to maintain her mask.

"How'd the Winchesters pick you up?" Crowley asked, a little conversational and a little skeptical. He started to smirk. "Lose a deal? Strip poker, maybe? A lovely sight, I imagine."

Harley let herself roll her eyes, half-hoping the King of Hell would get the hint and lay off. Part of her knew he never would; flirtation seemed to be part of his personality.

"I was performing at a bar - I'm a musician," she added quickly when Crowley raised an eyebrow. "And I ran into Sam and Dean. Social anxiety kicked in and I got all flustered when Dean said his name, they tracked me down, and _voila - _here I am." Harley made sure to keep out the part about the three of them making an expedition to the vampire nest and how Harley had apparently vaporized most of the fiends. Crowley didn't need to know that, demon names or not.

Crowley nodded, then bent forward and (to Harley's pleased surprise) scribbled a name on the paper. Harley read the name upside down: in surprisingly neat handwriting, read: Screwtape.

"Screwtape? Seriously?" Harley asked dubiously.

Crowley shrugged and grinned.

"You think Mr. Narnia made up that name?"

Harley held up defensive hands, then folded her arms on the table again.

"Alright, next."

"What are you?" Crowley asked, his voice low and seductive again. Harley blinked and the cold grip of fear had her again.

_Oh shit... well, a deal's a deal, right?_

"Vampire," Harley confessed, mumbling. Crowley's eyebrows shot up, his eyes going wide. He leaned forward, scrutinizing her features.

"And the Winchesters let you in their little clique?" he questioned. Harley gestured to the paper; Crowley scribbled, then repeated his question with increasing interest.

Harley had a stroke of genius, and quickly changed her mask to one of crestfallenness.

"They don't really trust me, though. It's lonely, really. I'm just stuck here, taking orders. Research this, research that. It sucks."

Crowley nodded, making the chain link around his neck jiggle and creak. True to his word, he leaned forward and scribbled another name.

"You struck luck, love. They keep me chained in here twenty-four-seven, in the dark. You lose track of time and get too lost in your thoughts. I think I've counted all of the dead bugs on the floor," Crowley murmured in a lost tone; Harley thought he was exaggerating a bit, but then again, he _was _chained up here in the dark all day and night. Not that he didn't deserve it, though. Crowley looked back at her and looked her up and down again. "A beautiful thing like you walking in, makes me want to give you the names of all the demons I know to just keep you here." He winked at her flirtatiously again.

Harley had to admit, he had a way with words and she couldn't help herself from feeling flattered. But this was all part of his trick to get her guard down and give too much information, so she kept her mask of sadness.

"It's nice to know someone understands me," Harley said, keeping her voice low and making it crack a little. It sounded natural; Crowley grinned at her, buying it.

_Damn, I'm too good at this, _she thought to herself. _This is scary. _

Crowley scribbled another name; four demon names in one sitting. Harley stood up, making the chair screech against the concrete. She gripped the paper and crayon and shoved them in her pocket. Disappointment flickered through Crowley's eyes, and Harley almost felt guilty for leaving. Almost.

"Thank you for your time..." she added, "Your Majesty."

_Bingo. _Crowley seemed to actually smile with pleasure and nodded.

"And for yours, love. Come by anytime, I'm not going anywhere." He raised both handcuffed hands, making the chains clatter against each other and the floor. Harley nodded, then walked out. As she closed the shelves, a flicker of compassion betrayed her as Crowley stared at the floor, looking so lonely and crestfallen. The shelves clanged together unharmoniously and ominously. Harley walked towards the hanging string and pulled it; the room was bathed in darkness, and as she pulled open the main door of the archive room/dungeon and closed it, she couldn't help but picture Crowley sitting in the darkness, all alone, tortured by his thoughts. If anyone knew what that was like, Harley sure as hell did.

* * *

"Four demon names?" Sam asked incredulously as Harley handed him the paper.

"You're a real natural," Dean commented where he stood beside Kevin, who was scribbling on a piece of paper beside a large stone tablet. Harley felt the need to ask what the tablet was for, but decided not to push her luck. The brownie points had been earned, and she didn't dare lose them again.

"Um, Harley," Sam said, his voice doubtful.

"What?"

"These names," he began, looking up at her almost cautiously, "they're... they're of demons that are dead."

Someone might as well have dumped a cold bucket of water on Harley's head, because she was shaking. Shaking with fury.

"_What!" _

"Yeah. Except for Screwtape, there's Alastair, Azazel, and Meg. They're all dead."

Harley ran her hands through her hair. From the archive room, Harley could hear Crowley chuckling to himself almost on cue, and murmuring:

"_Don't con a con-artist, love." _


	8. Hungry Like the Wolf

**Hey everyone! Thanks so much for reading, reviewing, following/favoriting, it means soooo much to me! :D I apologize for not updating earlier, I've been very busy with school and homework but I will try to update more regularly! **

_REVIEW ANSWERS: _

**microsedy - **I'm so happy that you like my story! And thank you very much, I try! :D I love Lindsey Stirling, too! She's so amazing, I wish I was as talented as she is. Have you seen her music video with Pentatonix of the song Radioactive? It's fantastic! :D

* * *

The Impala slowed to a stop in front of the _Lone Sunflower _bar in the middle of an apocalyptic rainstorm; the raindrops fell with such an intensity that it sounded like fireworks exploding in the distance. Through the torrential rain that fogged and clouded all of the windows except for the section the windshield wipers cleared somewhat, Dean could see luminescent yellow police tape in front of the bar and police cars surrounding the entrance.

Dean turned to Harley in the front seat. She was dressed in a fancy black dress and had her hair neatly combed and brushed to one shoulder, exposing an ear. She had come with him when Sam had fallen asleep during his research and Dean had forced him to go to bed. Sam had looked awful recently, almost corpse-like with deathly pale skin and sunken eyes stained a deep purple underneath.

"Hey, Jethro Tull, you ready?"

Harley looked at him confusedly.

"What'd you call me?"

"Jethro Tull. Y'know, Ian Anderson the famous flutist, and you play the flute... never mind," Dean muttered. "Y'know how to interrogate, or do you wanna scan the place and take notes instead?"

Harley considered this for a moment.

"I'll take notes. I feel like you're more of a people person... though I'm sure you hate people."

"I don't hate people," Dean said. "Just stupid people... which is most people."

Harley laughed, briefly revisited by memories of the numerous stupid and drunk-off-their-ass people she had encountered in numerous bars around the mid-west.

_Good times, good times, _she thought with an inward smirk.

So the hunter and the huntress exited the Impala and ran towards the bar in the pouring rain, still managing to get completely drenched. As they walked inside, Dean ruffled the raindrops off of his thoroughly drenched black suit, gave Harley's shoulder a supportive squeeze, then made a beeline to the cops conversing beside the bar counter.

The metallic smell of blood nearly slapped Harley in the face the second she had walked in. It was so strong, Harley gripped the nearest table for stability. After a few breaths, she managed to continue walking without attracting unnecessary attention. She smelled the blood before she saw it was used to decorate the walls in disorganized splatters.

There were table upturned and chairs thrown about; it looked as if a serious scuffle had gone down. Harley breathed the air in deeply yet carefully, and found another scent that made her heart stop.

_Vampires, _she thought with horror. _The blood is only a day old. They must have been looking for me. _

She continued scrutinizing the crime scene, taking in the various scents: two males, three female vampires had been here. Also, several men - their blood tainted with alcohol, she noticed - had been here but their scents were scattered about the room. She glanced around at a brown paper bag lying in a dark puddle surrounded by police tape with a laminated number on paper lying next to it.

Harley bent down and gazed at it, then quickly jumped back. It wasn't a brown paper bag lying in a lump.

It was a human _lung_. In a pool of _blood_.

Harley wasn't sure whether she found that absolutely disgusting or appetizing. She quickly strode away from it, making a mental note that the vampires had not only caught a snack for the road but had decided to play with it before chowing down.

As she walked around the bar, some of the cops and agents would glance at her, then do a double take in bewilderment. She looked pretty out of place; a woman in her mid-twenties, wearing a black dress and black heels with drenched hair and probably runny make-up walking around a crime scene? _What the hell, _would be an understandable reaction.

Harley glanced at the group of cops Dean was chatting up, and felt momentarily envious of his apparent people skills. He seemed to getting everything he wanted out of them, while Harley knew full well that she would've just started blabbering in front of them and just talked herself in circles. It was a miracle that she had been able to talk to Crowley, despite her failure to actually get any legitimate names out of him.

A vision of him sitting chained up in the dark flashed before her eyes and a stab of guilt hit her. She waved it away by striding towards the bar counter where the bloody aroma was strongest. Her and Dean exchanged a glance before she continued to where a great deal of police tape had been strung around a square of six by five feet behind the group of cops.

Pushing past a few people, she saw what was inside the police tape and put a hand to her mouth, guilt splashing over her like a freezing shower.

The old bartender was lying on the floor in a black-cherry colored pool. His skin was pale white and his torso was torn open into a bloody mess of strewn organs and spoiling bodily fluids. On his neck, arms, and legs were the unmistakable two puncture wounds of vampire bites.

"Excuse me, miss, but what business do you have here?" a voice asked her gruffly, grabbing her shoulder and spinning her around. The crinkled, muddy brown eyes of an old policeman glared into hers, his grip tightening on her shoulder. He was a slim, spry man of about sixty, with thick, white hair and a mustache of the same color. His eyes were intense despite the lack of vibrant hue, and they gazed into Harley's and softened. His grip on her shoulder softened a hair.

"She's with me," Dean's voice chimed in authoritatively, stepping up beside Harley, much to the huntress-vampire's relief. "So lay off, buddy." Dean glowered at the old policeman, who quickly pulled his hand back. The man opened his mouth to question Dean, but the hunter had produced a black wallet and flipped it open to reveal his picture beside the FBI symbol and an FBI badge pinned to the bottom flap. "I'm Agent Hetfield and this is my Agent-in-Training, Ms. Davidson."

Harley extended a formal hand to the cop, who shook it somewhat reluctantly.

"Officer Smithers," the old man replied, giving Harley glance that confused her before turning his gaze to Dean. "So, Agent Hetfield, what does the FBI have to do with a gruesome murder in little ol' Lebanon?"

"We're very involved nationwide, Officer Smithers," Dean responded curtly, surprising Harley with his businesslike manner. She felt like she should be hearing Dean sing loudly along to AC/DC instead of acting so... cold and unfeeling. He was certainly a good actor.

"I'm from the area," Harley piped up, the idea popping in her head. "I heard about what happened here in the local newspaper and got my partner's attention about it. Thought it'd be worth checking out, particularly since the murder is so... unprecedented."

_Use big words, big words are good, _she coached herself.

"Well, agents," the officer began, bending back and hooking his thumbs in his belt. "This here may be a gruesome death, but nobody 'round here ain't got no bones to pick with nobody. This here's a nice town with nice people. If you ask me, I'd say someone from outta town did this."

"Out of town?" Dean asked.

"Yes sir," the officer confirmed. He glanced around the bloodstained room and let his eyes graze over the dismembered body on the ground before returning to Dean. "That man there, his name is - _was_, Briggs. Jonathan Briggs. We all called him Jonny-B... anyways, he was a good man. Kind to all, gave a free meal and a beer to the all the men and women who washed up here divorced, homes on foreclosure, or just havin' a rough day. Kindest man I ever knew... I don't know nobody in their right mind who would've had a bone to pick with him."

Harley glanced at the corpse on the floor, feeling my heartstrings plucked and my stomach flipped simultaneously.

_Poor old guy, he was so kind to me when I performed here. He didn't deserve this, _she thought.

"Thank you, Officer Smithers," Dean said, almost a bit too coldly to be compassionate, then added in the same tone, "and sorry about your friend."

The officer nodded, then glanced at Harley. She offered a sympathetic smile, to which he returned warmly.

"You seem like a sweet girl, Ms. Davidson," he said, extending a hand to her, which she shook professionally. "You remind me of my daughter. She was a sweet girl, too." His eyes glazed over for a moment, before he pulled his hand back. "Y'know, a partner of mine always used to say, 'May the road rise to meet you, and may the wind be always at your back.' Quirky old fella, Irish born." He turned his gaze to Dean and immediately hardened. "You take good care of her, ya hear? I'm sure she can fend for herself and all but if she needs your help, you better damn well get off your ass and help her, ya hear? If I see her like my friend over here on the floor, I'll have your head on a pike... _Agent_."

Dean blinked at him in shock, then recovered and nodded briskly. Harley gawked at the officer's outburst, to which he gave a friendly wink and clapped a hand on her shoulder. "You're gonna do great things, kid. I know it."

She smiled at him, feeling warmth spread through her.

"Thanks, Officer Smithers."

"Call me Henry."

"Okay, Henry. Thanks a lot."

With that, Dean and Harley left the bar, but not before she gave another friendly wave of farewell to the friendly officer who should've been her father. The rain was still coming down like the wrath of God, so Harley and Dean's clothes were drenched again. As Harley got into the Impala, the stench of the trespassing vampires still hung in her nose. _You're gonna do great things kid. I know it. _

"Weird guy, huh?" Dean began conversationally, back to his old, cheeky self. "Threatening an FBI agent. He's got balls, I'll give him that. Sounded a bit like John Wayne, didn't he?"

"Hey, Dean," she said tentatively as started the car. Dean turned to her, letting the car idle. "Do you think... will I end up like that guy? The bartender on the floor, I mean?"

The color drained from Dean's face and it immediately hardened to stone. He turned back to the windshield and pressed down the accelerator. The Impala pulled out of the parking lot in the pouring rain and onto the country road.

"Not on my watch," he said finally, when Harley was making a mental note to never ask him questions like that. He let out a sigh, then glanced at me, then back at the windshield with a grin. "You're not bad, vampire. Could let up on the sarcasm a bit. And the music composing thing is weird, were you dropped as a kid?"

She snorted in derision.

"Look who's talking! And Ms. Davidson, _really_? Did you really just make my name Harley Davidson?"

Dean shrugged.

"Hey, I could've made you Ms. Butz, like my tenth grade English teacher. God, she was awful. Total grammar Nazi. I misspelled some words and forgot a few semi-colons in an essay once, and she gave me an F! A freakin' _F! _What kind of sick, twisted person..."

Dean droned on about his awful high school memories as her mind wandered. Harley couldn't help thinking about the man on the floor, the kind gentleman who was rewarded with having his blood nearly drained and his torso torn open. And those other people whose blood decorated the walls...

_They're after me, _she thought with surprising certainty. _They're like hunting dogs on a scent... _A thought struck her then. _Do they have a huntsman? A master? Has someone bribed them into doing this... or was a deal made? _Shivers went down her spine. Dean was laughing about someone, so she quickly joined in and then stopped when he continued on another rant about his old gym teacher, Mr. Young, who apparently was as ancient as the pyramids of Giza.

Dean had turned on the radio sometime during the drive and Harley heard Duran Duran's Hungry Like the Wolf begin to play.

Harley's throat suddenly felt parched and her stomach growled and she remembered all of the blood in the bar, all over the walls and on the floor... _Right on schedule, _she thought, picking up her small canteen off of the car's floor. He popped the lid and took a long gulp, listening to Jeff Thomas sing, "_And I'm hungry like the woooolf!" _


	9. Ballad of Mona Lisa

**Hello all! I apologize for not updating in about two weeks, I've been extremely busy lately but I've made sure that this chapter was exciting to make up for it! Thanks again to all who've continued reading and please leave your thoughts in the reviews, I love getting to see what you all think of my story! It just makes my day like nothing else! :)**

**I've named this chapter "Ballad of Mona Lisa" after Panic! At the Disco's song, not exactly for the song's exact meaning but for the some of the parallels between the verses and this chapter and for the feel the song gives off. Listen to it and you'll know what I mean when you read this next installment of _Blood._**

_UPDATE: October 5, 3:31 PM: I fixed up a few passages to make them flow better and corrected some grammar issues. I wrote this originally at 2AM, don't judge me. _

* * *

"Hey, guys," Kevin greeted the hunters as they strode towards him. He was exactly as they'd left him: huddled over the Angel Tablet, steadfastly translating with a lonely glass of milk by his side. Dean noticed with a pang of guilt that deep purple bags hung beneath Kevin's eyes and his skin was a shade lighter than it used to be. "Find anything... not natural?"

"A whole crap ton," Dean quipped, shedding his business suit coat and tossing it onto the nearest chair. "Some bartender ran into Harley's ex's and, well, they decorated the walls with him."

Kevin shuddered visibly and took a shaky gulp of milk.

"Jeez," he said, setting his glass down. "Heavy stuff."

"Yeah, heavy," Harley murmured from beside him in a voice that seemed very far away. Dean glanced at her; she was gazing at the floor, seeming a bit pale.

_I shouldn't have taken her with me, _he realized with another pang of guilt. _That really shook her up bad. Damn it, Dean-! _

"Sammy still sleepin'?" Dean asked quickly to shut up his thoughts.

Kevin nodded, turning back to his translations, not before casting Harley a wary glance; she was still staring off into space.

"Yeah, he's been napping for about two hours now. He really needed it, he was not looking good," Kevin said while scribbling on the sheet of loose-leaf paper beside him with a yellow pencil.

Dean nodded, not really hearing him. His heart ached incessantly for his suffering brother, and even more so that he couldn't do anything about it.

"I'm going to go check on him," Dean announced. "Harley, you can just chill for a while. Maybe do some more of that... composing music thing. Write me a classic rock song while you're at it." He winked at her and forced a smile before turning on his heel and power-walking to Sam's room. For some reason, he had a very bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.

_I just need more sleep, _he reasoned, listening to his footsteps echoing on the tile floor. _But who knows when I'll actually get that again. _

He strode past the kitchen and down a small case of stairs to Sam's room on the right. He knocked on the door before gingerly pushing it open. The light was off and Dean could make out a lump in the bedsheets.

A smile tugged at Dean's lips. He stepped back and was closing the door again when something stopped him cold. His blood ran cold and everything felt wrong. Dean pushed the door open and slipped inside Sam's room, becoming one with the darkness. He tiptoed to Sam's bed; the closer he got, the heavier the foreboding became that made his heart thump loudly.

He came up beside Sam in his bed. His brother's long hair was strewn across his pillow haphazardly and he had cocooned himself in the blankets.

"Sammy," Dean whispered.

Silence.

_That's weird, _Dean wondered. _I can't even hear his... _

His heart stopped and his skin crawled. Slowly but surely, Dean stretched out his fingers and felt along Sam's neck for his pulse. Dean felt the frigidness of his brother's skin before he realized that...

_No. _

He started shaking Sam, firmly, then insanely and vigorously.

"_No, no, no!" _Dean hollered hysterically, his voice booming. Sam moved lifelessly beneath Dean's hands, like a ragdoll. "_SAMMY!" _

Dean staggered backwards and managed to turn on the lights. The light illuminated Sam's colorless face and grey lips; his face was facing Dean, turned that way from Dean shaking him. His mouth hung open slackened and his eyes were closed peacefully. He looked like he was sleeping.

Dean couldn't breathe. He groped the wall for support as his knees felt weak. His heart didn't seem to be beating, but bleeding from a gaping wound.

_Sammy was dead... he died and I wasn't here... I left him alone for two hours, just two freaking hours... _

Dean didn't hear the slamming footfalls down the hallway until the bedroom door burst open and Kevin and Harley ran in, faces pale and sweating.

"Dean, what's wro-?" Kevin began, but stopped when he saw Sam.

The silence deafened their ears and crushed their hearts.

"Oh, my God..." Harley murmured, her voice cracking.

Dean barely heard them. To him, there was no one else in the room. There was only him and his dead brother.

* * *

Harley walked down the hallway in a daze, as though she were hyped up on drugs. She didn't remember leaving Sam's room, but as soon as she had seen the pale and lifeless corpse lying in the bed, she knew what she had to do. Her brain had shut down at the horrible sight, but her senses guided her to the archive room.

She watched herself push open the door and then the back, heavy metal dungeon doors. Crowley, who had been gazing at the table in front of him, started and stared at her suddenly. When he saw it was her, he regained his cool and leaned back casually.

"'Ello, love," he cooed, grinning. "What brings you here-"

"Sam is dead," she deadpanned.

The smirk on Crowley's face slid off and he just stared at her, disbelieving.

"Pardon?" he asked, his voice small and no longer seductive. It was the voice of someone who had just been told their house had been foreclosed.

"Sam is dead," Harley heard herself repeat in that same, dead voice. "I want to make a deal. My soul for his."

Crowley blinked at her, baffled.

"Love, do you even know Sam?" he asked dubiously and a little aghast. "Are you willing to give up your soul for him? Do you know what he's _done_?"

Harley straightened herself and squared her shoulders, resolute in her decision.

"No, but I know Dean. And I owe Sam... a life for a life. He convinced Dean to keep me alive. I owe him, and I owe Dean."

To her surprise, Crowley almost looked reluctant. She thought he'd jump at the chance to snag her soul from her, but he seemed to be searching for words to change her mind. But, after a few moments, Crowley nodded to her.

"Well, you'll have to unshackle me, love. Can't do this if I can't move my arms."

Harley strode over to him without a single thought and took hold of the chain that held the King of Hell's feet. With a single jerk, she tore the chain in two with her vampiric strength. She did this with the rest of the chains and the manacle around Crowley's neck until he could stand up straight and crack his back.

"That feels lovely," he said, more to himself than to her, though glancing at her warily.

"Okay, I have at least five minutes before they know I've gone," Harley said, getting down to business. "How do we do this?"

"Well, normally I'd have you sign a contract, but misfortune has it that you're not human," Crowley explained, rubbing his bruised and bloodied wrists and taking steps towards her. "Your soul is different. One may say it's mutated, in a sense. So, we're going to have to do this the bloody way... literally speaking." He let out a labored sigh, and reached up the collar of his dirty and blood-caked suit, and tugged down the black shirt collar beneath the suit, exposing his neck.

Harley hesitated until Crowley snapped, "I'm not showing my neck to flatter you. Go on, then!"

She stepped forward, and her instincts kicked in; she bent her neck and felt her fangs slide out of the gums, and she sunk them into the demon's neck.

Pure paradise flooded her mouth. The sweet yet salty, rich, caramelized flavor set her taste buds on fire and awakened her senses. She was suddenly aware that she was drinking a demon's blood in exchange for Sam's soul; fear gripped her and she stepped back suddenly, breathing hard and blood dripping down her chin.

Crowley glared at her, and she realized he was in pain. Before she could utter a lame apology, he brought a knife out of his suit pocket. For a split second, Harley thought he was going to kill her; she bared her fangs and hissed.

"No need to get feisty," he quipped, turning the knife on his hand and beginning to carve. Transfixed, Harley watched him carve a weird symbol into his skin, making the delicious, ruby liquid drip and spill onto the floor; holding her breath, Harley tried to ignore the delicious aroma that filled her nostrils.

"I hate that part," Crowley muttered, before thrusting his hand forward onto Harley's left cheek.

Nothing happened. Crowley withdrew his hand and pulled out the red hankie from his breast pocket and began wrapping it around his bleeding hand.

"Is that it?" Harley asked gingerly.

"Yes, indeed, love," Crowley replied, his old swagger back. "Your soul is mine and you've got ten years to live, and Sam should be back momentarily. Now, if I were you, I'd get the hell out of here as quickly as possible."

Harley blinked at him, somewhat distracted from the heavy, sweet aroma of his blood.

"What?"

"Well, I may have added in a clause to our bloody contract," Crowley said casually, "that may include you working for me. My weapon of mass destruction, if you will. Oh, and if you don't get out of here a.s.a.p., then I'll just take back Sam's soul and be on my merry way."

Harley opened her mouth to protest when Kevin called her name from a distance. She gazed in that direction, then turned back to Crowley fearfully.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" he demanded irritably.

Harley didn't hesitate; she took off out of the room, not bothering to close the doors. She hurled herself down the hallway and into the main room. She flew past the long tables and the electronic table-map of the world and started ascending the stairs desperately. Kevin called her name louder, closer. She skipped the last couple steps and threw the door open. As she sprinted out into the torrential rain, she could've sworn she heard Kevin start yelling for Dean.

The vampire bolted to her old pickup and nearly dove headfirst into it upon opening the driver's door. She slammed the door shut, kick-started the engine, and stomped on the accelerator. The tires squealed in protest as she barrelled away from the bunker, the safest place on Earth, into the unknown.

Not much later, reality finally caught up with Harley and a torrent of emotions attacked her. She pulled off to the side of the road where she was concealed by trees and began to sob. The hot tears streaked her cheeks and her head pounded from an oncoming headache.

_My soul is gone, my soul is gone, what have I done...! Oh shit, oh shit... _

A hand grasped her shoulder gently. Harley didn't stir; she knew who it was and the tears came on even harder.

"Don't cry, love," his voice purred soothingly. "You'll get used to it. We'll make a great team."

Harley leaned her head on the steering wheel and forced herself to calm down. The grip on her shoulder tightened.

"Love, I've just added a new clause. It states that I swear to protect you in this contract. I may be the King of Hell, but I am a man of my word, and you can quote me on that."


End file.
